The committee met at 3:31 p.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Janet Routledge. I am the MLA for Burnaby North and the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, a committee of the Legislative Assembly that includes MLAs from the government and opposition parties.

I would like to acknowledge that we are meeting this afternoon in Nanaimo, which is located on the traditional territories of the Snuneymuxw people.

I would also like to welcome everyone who is listening to and participating in today’s meeting on Budget 2022 consultation.

Our committee is currently seeking input on priorities for the next provincial budget. We are coming up to the end of our meetings and our consultation period.

British Columbians can still share their views by making written comments or by filling out the online survey. Details are available on our website at bcleg.ca/fgsbudget. The deadline for all input is tomorrow, Thursday, September 30, 2021, at 5 p.m. We will carefully consider all input and make recommendations to the Legislative Assembly on what should be included in Budget 2022. The committee intends to release its report in November.

For this afternoon’s meeting, all presenters will be making individual presentations. Each presenter has five minutes for their presentation, followed by five minutes for questions from committee members.

All audio from our meetings is broadcast live on our website. A complete transcript will also be posted.

I’ll now ask members of the committee to introduce themselves.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): Good afternoon. My name is Ben Stewart. I’m the MLA for Kelowna West and the Housing critic. I look forward to your presentations.

H. Sandhu: Good afternoon. I am Harwinder Sandhu, MLA for Vernon-Monashee.

I am coming to you from the unceded and traditional territory of the Okanagan Indian Nations.

I look forward to your presentation.

M. Starchuk: Good afternoon. My name is Mike Starchuk, MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale.

That is located on the traditional, unceded lands of the Coast Salish people, including the Kwantlen, Katzie, and Semiahmoo.

G. Kyllo: Good afternoon. My name is Greg Kyllo. I’m the MLA for Shuswap, and I’m also the B.C. Liberal critic for Labour.

M. Dykeman: Hello. My name is Megan Dykeman. I am the MLA for Langley East, and I’m looking forward to your presentations today.

J. Brar: Good afternoon. My name is Jagrup Brar. I’m the MLA for Surrey-Fleetwood.

L. Doerkson: Hi, everybody. My name is Lorne Doerkson. I’m the MLA for Cariboo-Chilcotin and happy to be here in Nanaimo. I’m also the critic for Rural Development.

J. Routledge (Chair): Assisting the committee today are Jennifer Arril and Stephanie Raymond, from the Parliamentary Committees Office, and from Hansard Services, we have Amanda Heffelfinger, Simon DeLaat and Mike Baer. I want to thank them for all the work that they do behind the scenes to help move us around the province, get us to where we need to be and get us set up.

With that, I would like to invite our first presenter, Michael Reid, representing Nature United.

Michael, you have five minutes to make your presentation. We are using our phones to keep track of time. We will signal you when you have 30 seconds so you can start wrapping up, and then we’ll move into questions.

Budget Consultation Presentations

NATURE UNITED

M. Reid: Thank you, Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to speak with you today.

I’m on the traditional territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation.

[3:35 p.m.]

My name is Michael Reid, and I’m the B.C. program director with Nature United. Nature United is a national organization aimed at creating solutions for people and nature by building diverse partnerships to ensure the protection and sustainable management of lands and waters.

We recognize that nature is the foundation of healthy communities, strong economies and future opportunities. We are committed to being a respectful partner with Indigenous communities.

For well over a decade, we have worked with First Nations partners in the Great Bear Rainforest. In 2008, we contributed $39 million to an endowment that supports Indigenous stewardship and sustainable resource management throughout the region.

Since then, our work has evolved and expanded to elsewhere on the B.C. coast, notably Clayoquot Sound and into the marine realm, where we are a funder and partner in the marine planning partnership or MaPP. Our work has also expanded to elsewhere across B.C. and Canada.

Our work is best described in the context of two overarching objectives: strengthening Indigenous authority for resource management and tackling climate change through natural climate solutions. Sustainable economic development and conservation finance are key strategies for both of these objectives. Natural climate solutions, which is what I’m going to focus on today, are actions taken to protect, manage and restore nature to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

After the record-breaking heat of this past summer, British Columbians saw the real consequences of climate change. The question is no longer about whether to take action. The need for action is obvious and imperative. The question is about what actions must be taken, what solutions are available to us now and how we implement them in a way that protects communities and families.

A suite of solutions will be required to reduce our emissions, but I’m here to explain why natural climate solutions must be a major part of that mix. New science, led by Nature United with 16 other research institutions, shows that natural climate solutions could reduce Canada’s emissions by up to 78 megatonnes by 2030, with 7.6 megatonnes of that coming from B.C.

In B.C., the greatest opportunities lie in our forests with activities that include an uplift in old-growth conservation, increased use of incremental silviculture treatments, repurposing wood waste, shifting production towards long-lived wood products. All of these things can be accomplished while respecting the importance of the forest sector to many communities and to workers throughout the province.

There are many advantages to pursuing natural climate solutions, or NCS. It can begin today. It is not reliant on new technology or future wild cards. It is affordable. Our research showed that about 42 percent of B.C.’s potential NCS reductions would cost $50 per tonne or less, and most of it can be done for less than $100 per tonne.

It buys us time. Investing in affordable, short-term wins through NCS gives us the time we need to develop the policies and technology required to address our most difficult emissions reduction challenges. It can be done in ways that preserve and even increase employment opportuni­ties. It can be done in ways that advance reconciliation. It can improve the resilience of our forests to the effects of climate change. It can provide many other co-benefits, including support for biodiversity, wildlife habitat, as well as flood protection, improved air and water quality.

NCS is an important tool for combatting climate change, and we urge you to pick up this tool and use it. We are asking that you recommend that natural climate solutions are considered as a priority in the budget and to ensure that the government’s policy focus and spending be increased in a way that reflects that priority.

Thank you. I would be happy to answer any questions.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Michael.

I’ll now invite members of the committee to ask their questions.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): Michael, thanks very much. There’s a lot in your presentations, and I say that…. One of the questions about…. You’re talking about the recovery of the fibre in the forest and utilizing it, etc. I guess I’m wondering about the economics of this recovery.

[3:40 p.m.]

At $50 a tonne, if you’ve compared that to what fibre recovery is today…. You talk about the potential for, I guess, protection of existing jobs. I’m just wondering how much work…. I don’t see any of that work in here, although it’s mentioned by yourself.

M. Reid: Right. The study, the research, includes implementation costs and opportunity costs. I think the alter­native employment opportunities available, including not only with shifting wood product production but also silviculture treatments, are going to be somewhat localized.

There are examples of this work in Great Bear Rainforest. There are examples on the west coast, emerging in Clayoquot Sound, where there is an intentional transition to a new way of forestry that does preserve jobs and aligns with the interests of local communities. I think that is an important thing to look at in each region of B.C.

Of course, there are going to be regions of B.C. that are much more dependent on the forest sector. I think careful consideration needs to be given to the actions taken within those regions with respect to a transition in forest management. I think it requires a regional analysis to assess where different solutions and opportunities exist across the province.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): So just to be clear, we’ve got Harmac just down the road here, and we’ve got other fibre-processing facilities along the coast here. Are you expecting that those would be impacted? Are the jobs that people have there, in the sense…? How would they transfer to this new opportunity?

M. Reid: I don’t know that I can answer your question specifically. Again, I think that there are new technologies out there. I think that, again, it’s not necessarily…. We’re not saying there needs to be an end to forestry. Forestry is an integral part of our economy and should continue to be so. It’s more so about looking at some of the short-term opportunities to mitigate emissions while maintaining the strength of the forest sector in British Columbia.

I hope I’m not misunderstood on that point. I think that a lot of those fibre facilities and processing facilities can continue to exist. I think in some cases, there are opportunities to just focus on different product production. In certain cases, that may require new facilities, new technologies, so necessary investments and attention will be needed to be given to those things.

This comes back to doing this regional assessment and considering the regional opportunities that exist across the province, certainly for communities that are heavily dependent on the forest sector. Careful consideration needs to be given to industry, and industry should certainly be a part of the transition and the implementation of improved forest management throughout the province.

I don’t think we’re suggesting that they’re not at the table. I think that they need to take a leadership role in driving some of these decisions and changes as well as Indigenous communities and government.

J. Routledge (Chair): The next question is Mike, and then Megan. That’s probably all we have time for.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Michael, for this report. It comes across to me as a very good balance of what somebody gets and what somebody else gets, so I like the balance.

My question is: where has your submission been pushed to? Where, in other areas, has this popped up for somebody else to provide comment to?

M. Reid: It was published in Science Advances. I’m assuming you’re speaking to the paper specifically, the academic paper, so published in Science Advances. Certainly, our folks in Ottawa and Toronto have been briefing the federal government on this for the past number of months in advance of its release as well as once it was released.

We are talking to and working with Indigenous communities and representatives from industry, and we are talking to other members within B.C. We had a meeting with Minister Conroy in June and have highlighted some of the initial findings of this research.

[3:45 p.m.]

The focus of that meeting was not specifically on NCS broadly, but it has come up in those conversations, certainly. I want to acknowledge that B.C. has already indi­cated that there’s interest and movement towards NCS and looking at NCS in piloting projects.

I think what we’re suggesting is that increased energy and investment in some of that work, and specifically in the tools and resources to support land managers and tenure holders in picking up these solutions, would go a long way.

J. Routledge (Chair): We have time for one last question. Actually, we are out of time, so it should a quick question and a quick answer.

M. Dykeman: It’s all right. I can always skip if you want. It’s okay.

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay. Thank you so much, Michael. I noted what you’re talking about. I noted down you saying that it buys us some time. I think that there is such an atmosphere of urgency and panic around the climate crisis that sometimes what we need to hear is some calmer input, so thank you for that.

Our next presenter is Brenda Lenahan, B.C. Complex Kids Society.

B.C. COMPLEX KIDS SOCIETY

B. Lenahan: Thank you for the opportunity to present today. My name is Brenda Lenahan, and this is my son Cole. I’m the founder of B.C. Complex Kids Society. It was founded to advocate for equitable support for children with medical complexity.

We understand that there are about 4,000 families across B.C. whose children qualify for the At Home program, which is the MCFD program of support for our children and their families. We have four recommendations to bring forward to this committee as you consider the B.C. budget for 2022.

The first two recommendations remain the same as we recommended last year. We ask you to invest deeply in MCFD’s new children and youth with support needs service framework to ensure it can successfully alleviate financial burdens for families. We ask you to create an income support supplement that acknowledges the 24-7 care needs of our kids, the barriers to employment we face and the extraordinary cost that we bear.

We ask you to substantially increase funding to the supported child development program so all medically complex children in B.C. can benefit from early learning and social opportunities as well as give their parents the potential to participate in the workforce. We ask you to substantially increase funding to nursing support services, to reverse recent cuts to service delivery and ensure all children have the nursing support they require to participate in child care and school settings.

In preparation for this presentation, we looked to find the supporting data and research but unfortunately ran into black holes where wait-lists are not tracked, data is not available and research does not exist. This, in itself, is a huge problem that perpetuates the challenges our families face.

Instead, I will share some financial details with you from a family-centred lens. These numbers are just an example of the financial burden that is experienced by our families. These are out-of-pocket expenses due to funding shortfalls, pulled from my personal experience with my son in the past seven years: $1,000 funding shortfall for a walker, $6,000 for therapy, $8,000 for special seating systems, $4,500 for a standing frame, $20,000 for a used wheelchair van, approximately $30,000 for pending home accessibility renovations and an estimated $250,000 in lost wages. It is indeed an incredible financial burden for families.

Investing in the new CYSN framework is critical. If you have not had the opportunity, I urge you to read the report entitled Left Out that was released in December 2020 by the Representative for Children and Youth, Dr. Jennifer Charlesworth. In this report, she identified the lack of ongoing income support and that it is a problem that requires attention.

[3:50 p.m.]

Our second ask is that you invest in our families with an income support supplement, similar to what foster families in B.C. receive when they have a child with complex needs in their care. Quebec has a similar supplement that’s directed at biological families, and we know that other jurisdictions in the U.S. and Australia also recognize family care givers with similar supports.

Our third ask is that you invest deeply in the supported child development program. This is a program that funds a one-to-one support worker in a child care setting for kids with complex disabilities. It’s plagued by wait-lists and inequitable access across the province. Investments in inclusive and flexible child care would allow our families to participate in the workforce and our kids to access opportunities with their peers. This would be a win for families, for children and for the economy.

Nursing support services is a program that serves children with the most complex health needs, including interventions such as respiratory support. The funding is inadequate, which puts constant pressure on the program and, in turn, the families that rely on it. Recent changes to service delivery have resulted in a huge step backward for inclusion at school and in child care settings. We ask you to prioritize funding for this essential program.

Our families face barriers everywhere they turn. While you may hear the words “access” and “inclusion” more often these days, the system in B.C. has not improved in any tangible way. The At Home program respite component only funds about ten hours per month, and many are still wait-listed. Funding caps for medical equipment are the same dollar figures as when the program was created in 1989. At that time, families advocated to keep their children at home and out of institutions, and 32 years later that same program is threatening to have children end up back in care because families can’t bear the costs.

All of the investments we have asked for would serve to keep families healthy and together, reduce disability poverty, help bring an end to discriminatory public policies and create a path towards a truly inclusive B.C. We ask you to be champions for change. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Brenda.

Now I’ll ask members of the committee to ask questions. We have time for two or three questions.

J. Brar: Brenda, I don’t have words to say thank you to you for the exceptional work you’re doing for your son and, of course, for many, many, many other kids who have complex needs and complex health care needs. I really appreciate that. Thanks for coming today to make your presentation to us.

I just want to maybe explore more, if you know, about one of the recommendations you’re talking about, and that is the income support supplement. I completely agree with you that what we are doing right now…. We have, to the best of my knowledge, no support for parents right now with kids with complex health care needs. But when we remove them from their families, we spend a lot of money. Sometimes one kid has three or four staff members for 24 hours.

If you can explain that a bit more to me, that would be helpful, and if there’s anybody in any other province doing it, that would be actually even more helpful.

B. Lenahan: Yeah. The cost is enormous when children end up in the care of the province — like you said, multiple staff members.

Quebec does have a program, and we know that in the U.S. and Australia, there are also programs. I think that there are models that could be looked at to see what’s working and what’s not in other areas. Our families certainly could do with an enormous amount of support in that area.

I believe that the dollar value foster families…. If my son were in a foster care home — he normally would probably end up in a residential home, like you said, that was staffed — that would cost upwards…. It could cost $140,000 a year. A foster family, if they took a child like my son on, would get an extra $1,800 per month for the extra needs, above the regular support they receive as foster parents.

J. Brar: Okay. Thank you very much.

[3:55 p.m.]

L. Doerkson: You actually started to touch just now on what my question was. It looks to me like there is probably about $20,000 or $30,000 of annual expenses — right? — and then, of course, the loss of income. I know that vans and those types of things are expensive.

What does that income supplement look like to you, if the province was to provide that?

B. Lenahan: It looks like a supplement similar to…. I mean, a lot of our families…. Some families were able to get the federal CERB, although many, many families could not. If you didn’t have $5,000 of income…. Many families have been on income assistance and at home with their kids for years.

That sort of baseline support…. I mean, we really need all of the medical equipment, respite, all of those supports, as well, to be brought up to a 2021 standard.

L. Doerkson: I understand.

B. Lenahan: Just the basic cost of living and scrambling to…. We just came from a few days at Children’s Hospital. Our families are not easily employable because we’re running off to appointments all over the place. We’re really supporting our kids. We may be able to work part-time, but we need whatever supports can be there to really help us to thrive.

You have a child with complex needs. You suddenly find yourself sidelined. The options are limited, and it’s really financially challenging.

L. Doerkson: Maybe one more question, if I could. You mentioned a decrease in some support. Could you clear that up for me.

B. Lenahan: Nursing support services is a program that’s delivered through PHSA, through Children’s Hospital, and it provides one-to-one nursing support for kids with really high nursing needs. My son does not use that program — but kids often with respiratory support.

That program, I’m told, has been in a deficit for years. Apparently, it’s funded through MCFD but delivered through Health. It has been in a deficit for years, and they have recently decided to tidy things up so it’s not in a deficit, which has impacted families directly. It’s a pull-back, an assortment of exceptions to policy where children aren’t able to go to child care because there’s no nursing support to go into the child care to train them to use a feeding tube. They’ve pulled back all those supports.

It’s really a step back. This is just recent, this summer.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, Brenda, we’re out of time. On behalf of the committee, I’d like to thank you for coming and presenting.

Cole, I’d like to thank you for coming and helping your mom make this presentation.

B. Lenahan: Thank you so much.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Earl Blacklock, Vancouver Island Integrated Counselling and Community Services.

Earl, you have five minutes. We will signal you when you have 30 seconds left so that you can start wrapping it up, and then we have up to five minutes for questions and answers.

VANCOUVER ISLAND INTEGRATED
COUNSELLING AND COMMUNITY SERVICES

E. Blacklock: Hello, Madam Chair and members of the committee. My name is Earl Blacklock. I’m a Canadian certified counsellor with a master’s degree in counselling.

I manage Island Community Counselling, a non-profit charitable agency providing low-cost, affordable therapeutic counselling services. We are the largest community counselling agency on Vancouver Island, with four offices across the Island and three more being added in the next 12 months. What makes us a community counselling agency is that, just like the public system, we help everyone, without consideration for their age, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic background, race or religion.

In only three short years, we have grown almost 500 percent by following a simple principle. We have no wait-lists. We don’t believe in them. We provide direct services to both urban and rural areas across Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands and the Sunshine Coast, ensuring that those who would otherwise fall through the cracks of the public health system or who simply cannot navigate a confusing system still have access to the treatment they need to get well at an affordable cost.

[4:00 p.m.]

I’m therefore in a unique position to inform you on the mental health crisis of this province. In the current system, a person in crisis may be seen at the emergency ward of the hospital, but they will almost certainly be discharged within hours, even if they’re suicidal. If their issue is deemed sufficiently concerning, they may be admitted for anywhere from one day to several weeks, but that is a very rare outcome.

For those in crisis, therefore, there needs to be a consistent, effective third layer of support that complements and works alongside the publicly funded health care system. We offer that third layer of support. But the majority of those requiring mental health supports and therapeutic counselling services are not in crisis. Nonetheless, their lives are not moving forward in a healthy way. We meet their needs as well, so as to prevent the crisis.

We hire professionally trained master’s-level therapeutic counsellors to deliver skilled, effective therapeutic counselling services at an affordable cost. Every person we add to our staff of 23 counsellors is a master’s-level trained therapist who either has or will shortly receive certification or registration. These are not peer counsellors. Our clients needs are best met by trained specialists.

We serve everyone. So sex workers, members of the LGBTQ+ community, Indigenous peoples, immigrants, first responders, trauma survivors, addicts, families, seniors, children and teens. Nonetheless, we consistently witness funds designated for community counselling agencies such as ours being handed out on a random, ad hoc basis to those with far less capability who serve far fewer people.

If the funds were distributed on the basis of the capability of meeting the needs of all residents, rather than a select few, there would be no question as to whether we would be given those resources so that we could continue doing what we are already doing without disruption. But they are not.

There is no better way to meet the mental health needs of our residents than to ensure that community counselling agencies such as ours — and there are only 29 of them in the province — are adequately funded. We are the third layer of care that steps in when the public health system discharges a person from the emergency ward or the health care centre or the hospital.

We are extraordinarily effective. As a result of the work of our agency, more than 2,000 people on Vancouver Island each year receive affordable health care. Ask yourselves: if we grew almost 500 percent in three years just by making ourselves more available, how much greater is the need?

More than 40 percent of our work is to treat childhood and adult trauma. If we received even 10 percent of the cost to the treasury of our trauma clients’ income support, we would be more than adequately funded. We are currently running an annual $75,000 shortfall. If we do not stop doing much of what we are doing, such as our dialectical behaviour therapy groups, that shortfall will increase to $125,000.

We are at the point where we have to make hard decisions if we are to survive. The first to suffer will be those who have no other way to get the help they require. They are the people who are being added each day to your wait-lists, suicides and overdoses. Lives are saved each week by the work we do. Don’t let that work end because of a shortsighted failure to strategically fund community counselling agencies.

I am available for your questions.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Earl.

I’ll now invite members of the committee to ask questions.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Earl, for the work that you do and the presentation.

You mentioned about the funding handed out on a random basis to less qualified individuals or agencies or whatever. How would you suggest that government prioritize or come up with a way of making certain it got into the right hands?

E. Blacklock: You received ahead of time what a third layer of support agency, a community counselling agency, offers. Adequately fund the third layer before you fund the fourth layer.

[4:05 p.m.]

The fourth layer are the ones that are there for specific groups, very specific needs. But if you can adequately fund the emergency rooms, adequately fund the hospitals and adequately fund community counselling agencies, you won’t have people falling through the cracks to nearly the same extent. Most of the time people with mental health challenges simply can’t navigate all of the things that they have to navigate to figure out where the government has chosen to put its money.

The other thing that I’ll mention is that we were the agency that lobbied for the community counselling funding. We gave them all the reasons that they should do it. They had an announcement — $10 million over three years — and then they handed responsibility to hand that money out to a third party that then used criteria other than the ones that were designed for that program. So only three of the 29 community counselling agencies got the money that was designated for community counselling.

This is why we are continually frustrated. You look at where we were at that time; we had five counsellors. Within the next year, we will have 30. The purpose of that funding was to allow people to expand, and that’s what we’ve done, but with no support.

We do receive support from the gaming foundation. I should not say no support. But that funding hasn’t increased.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): Can I ask: is that third party still involved?

E. Blacklock: Yes. The government doesn’t use its own people to create A and B piles. These meet the criteria; these do not. They pass it to the third party, and then the third party basically has meetings.

It’s an inside group. You know, if you’re not in the inside group, you get no funding. We weren’t even considered. And we were the agency that basically provided all of the criteria that it should have — that funding. We weren’t even considered. Very frustrating.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Earl. Thank you for all that you do.

My question is pretty basic. You’ve got four offices. You talked about three more that are on the way. Does the deficit funding then change? Does the deficit funding change as your organization grows?

E. Blacklock: The deficit funding has been increasing each year. The way that we’ve met that deficit funding is that I haven’t taken a salary since July of last year. I’ve been covering costs for the growth out of my own pocket. It’s something that…. You know, just for the plans that we have in place for today, we need another $120,000.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, I think we’re pretty well out of time, Earl. On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you for taking the time to make a very clear, very compelling presentation. Thank you for your dedication.

Speaking for myself, this concept of first, second, third and fourth layer of care is something I’m intrigued by. I want to learn more about that. Thank you so much.

Our next presenter is Michelle Waite, CUPE 3479, North Island College support staff.

Whenever you’re ready. You have five minutes. We’ll signal you when you have 30 seconds left so you can wrap up, then we’ll have up to five minutes for questions.

CUPE LOCAL 3479, NORTH ISLAND
COLLEGE SUPPORT STAFF

M. Waite: Great. Thank you very much. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you on this blustery fall day.

I’m Michelle Waite. My pronouns are she and her. I serve as the CUPE, Canadian Union of Public Employees, president for the approximately 200 CUPE support staff members at North Island College. I’ve worked at North Island College for over 25 years.

[4:10 p.m.]

I’m also a general vice-president with CUPE British Columbia, which represents more than 100,000 workers across the province, including 15,000 workers at post-secondary institutions.

Our CUPE B.C. president, Karen Ranalletta, will be speaking to this committee next week with our overall recommendations. I’m hoping to focus my remarks today on CUPE B.C.’s recommendations on how the provincial budget should support post-secondary education and, in turn, support the CUPE members at North Island College.

Previous governments reduced funding to post-secondary institutions. This, coupled with caps on domestic tuition fee increases, have led to a funding model that is highly dependent on international student tuition fees. As we’ve seen during the COVID-19 pandemic, that’s a highly precarious funding model.

We are hopeful that a funding formula review will include meaningful participation from stakeholders in order to understand how to best fund the province’s post-secondary institutions to ensure their long-term sustainability and to make sure our institutions are aligned for economic recovery and student success.

Public post-secondary education is essential to the future of British Columbia and will be vital to adjust economic recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s why we recommend to the government to increase the funding of post-secondary institutions to at least 75 percent of base budgets and increase research funding and capacity. That’s recommendation No. 1.

We’re pleased that this government has supported the repatriation of public sector work in health care. We would like to see that support extended to post-secondary institutions with the development of a framework to bring work in-house. This is an important issue because privatization weakens communities. Privatization is also an equity issue, as women and racialized people are primarily impacted by contracted-out work at post-secondary campuses.

In addition, post-secondary funding should include directed funding for deferred maintenance. Safe and clean infrastructure is essential for all workers and students on our post-secondary campuses. All too often, the focus is on new builds, rather than ensuring that current infrastructure is in good condition. Ignoring deferred maintenance creates a more expensive problem down the line.

Our second recommendation is to increase funding for campus services, support bringing in-house our campus services and provide additional resources to address deferred maintenance.

We also think that an idea whose time has truly come is to allow post-secondary support staff to have an additional seat on college boards. Often the voices of staff are not heard around the decision-making tables, even though staff intimately understand post-secondary institutions and the needs of students and faculty. Adding additional seats to boards will help protect the democratic decision-making at colleges and universities.

Recommendation 3 is to amend the College and Institute Act, University Act and other institution-specific legislation to add a second elected support staff seat to college boards and add a second employee seat dedicated to institutional support staff to university boards of governors.

Our final recommendation in this sector is that the government should immediately freeze and progressively reduce tuition fees, replacing lost user-fee revenue with increased government funding.

We believe that these recommendations will allow post-secondary institutions to help deliver on the government’s commitment to put people at the centre of what government does. We often talk about educating the next generation and workforce of tomorrow. But far too often, governments have not funded this vital sector at a level that recognizes how important it is. We hope that this will continue to change and that our colleges and universities can play an important role as our province builds back better from the pandemic.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today, and I look forward to any questions you might have.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Michelle.

I will invite committee members to ask questions.

[4:15 p.m.]

J. Brar: Thanks, Michelle, for your presentation.

One of the recommendations you are making is to increase the funding to 75 percent to post-secondary institutions — of the base budget. Have you done any calculation as to what it would mean to the province as a whole in B.C., or don’t you have that figure?

M. Waite: I don’t have that figure, no.

J. Brar: So where are we right now?

M. Waite: Many of our institutions are less than 50 percent funded. We are, in many cases, public post-secondary institutions, but the majority of the revenue generated to run the institution doesn’t come from government. The institutions have to find a way to generate that money themselves.

J. Brar: The other one I want to quickly ask you…. You’re also recommending post-secondary support staff to one additional seat at the college board for the staff members. Do you have a seat now, or don’t you?

M. Waite: Yes, we have one.

J. Brar: Out of how many?

M. Waite: In the structure — and I’ll refer to the structure that I know, where I work — we have one elected support staff, one elected faculty and two elected students. The rest of the board is appointed through the cameral system.

We currently have one.

G. Kyllo: Thank you, Michelle. Is part of the reason for the reduced funding not a condition or a result of the fact that many universities and colleges are now bringing in international students? Is that not part of the reason why the total percentage of overall funding from government is actually reducing?

M. Waite: I don’t know if that’s why it is, but I do know that institutions have had to try to find ways to operate. Previously, there was increased urge for institutions to find ways to operate, and one of those revenue streams was international students.

Thinking about what it means to those families, I guess…. The cost for those students to come here and what they have to pay, I guess, is to help run our institutions. They’re public post-secondary institutions.

It just depends how you look at it. I support international students. I think we all do. They create an amazing breadth of education within our institutions for our students and our campuses as a whole.

G. Kyllo: My understanding was that typically, upwards of 66 percent, about two-thirds, was covered by government and about a third by tuition fees. But obviously, an international student, 100 percent of the fees would be borne by the student with no contribution. Two universi­ties that have the same number of students, but one body that might have 20 percent international students, would have a very different funding ratio if it was looked at — that perspective.

I think we just need to be careful in considering the numbers. Universities and colleges have international students, and I think there are valid reasons for them doing that. But the university or college that has a higher degree or higher number of international students will, overall, have less funding coming from government. We’ve just got to be careful with drawing conclusions directly from that.

Just one further question I might ask. I’ve heard this from a number of individuals who indicate that the administrative burden, the administration, of our colleges and universities has grown significantly over the last decade or so. Is that a number or stat that’s actually calculated or that is watched closely by colleges and universities as far as the amount of administration that is attached to running our colleges and universities in the province?

[4:20 p.m.]

M. Waite: I would say, generally, yes. Sometimes it’s difficult to calculate, depending on how big the organization is. If you think about UBC and the size of it, the time it would take to actually drill down into that….

I would say, on a whole, we’re always watching. Again, it comes back to that bottom line. When there isn’t as much money as we need to operate our public post-secondary institutions and, I’ll say, rural community colleges…. When you think of the expanse and breadth of area that a rural community college would need to cover to provide education to all of the citizens in its region, I think everybody’s watching to see where the dollars are spent.

One of those places that we would watch would be the administrative costs. In many institutions, they have increased substantially.

J. Routledge (Chair): We’re way over time. You’ve really engaged us, Michelle. So thank you for your presentation. Thank you for your perspective.

As you were making your recommendations, I was reflecting on when I was an undergrad and at a time when the government did cover most of the costs of education. You’re not the first one to flag some of these things to the committee. Really, it comes down to a question of: should post-secondary education, the cost of it, be covered by rich students and their rich families, regardless of where they come from, or is it a social benefit to all of us and we need to rethink our formula? That’s what I think I was hearing you say. Thank you.

Our next presenter is Gretchen Hartley, Vancouver Island Federation of Hospices.

VANCOUVER ISLAND
FEDERATION OF HOSPICES

G. Hartley: Hello. I am Gretchen Hartley. I’m the executive director of Cowichan hospice and the president of the Vancouver Island Federation of Hospices.

It’s an honour to be with you today on the ancestral territory of the Snuneymuxw people.

I’m here to talk to you about the bereavement care services provided by community hospices across the Island and to recommend an investment of about $50,000 per hospice, for a total of $550,000, to support the health of those grieving the death of a loved one.

The federation represents 12 community-based hospices across the Island, whose work is funded primarily by the communities that they service — primarily through fundraising. Of course, gaming’s important to us. These hospices provide emotional support and information for people living with serious illness, family members and care for people grieving the death of a loved one. Several hospices provide hospice beds or vital support services in publicly funded facilities that provide hospice care.

Today, however, I really would like to focus on the bereavement care that members provide. In 2020, the first full pandemic year, 3,475 people outside greater Victoria received no-cost bereavement care services from counsellors and from skilled hospice volunteers. Hospices provide specialized and affordable mental health care for those grieving the death of someone they love. Individual support and support groups are provided, as I said, by counsellors and by specially trained and supervised volunteers.

Research shows that the death of a parent, a sibling or a child results in an increased use of mental health and other health care services — one study, one that I’ve shared with you the reference to, said up to 20 to 30 percent increased use of health care services in the months and years after a death.

In fact, community hospices are providing vital care during both of B.C.’s pandemics. In the past 20 months, many people have experienced the lonely death of a loved one in a hospital or a long-term-care facility. Due to COVID-19 safety protocols, often family members were only able to be with the dying person in the last few hours of their life.

[4:25 p.m.]

We’re probably all familiar with the situation for so many people, and through bereavement, people have not been able to gather with family and friends for comfort or connection, nor together hold a celebration of life.

The result is that this isolation and the loss of important rituals at this challenging time has led some people to experience really difficult grief that challenges their own health and well-being and sometimes triggers lasting depression and increased use of health care.

Community hospices across the Island and, indeed, across the province have supported a path to healthier grief during the pandemic, adapting our normal in-person services through telephone and video support and, when permitted by public health order, through safely distanced support groups.

To speak to the losses resulting from our parallel pandemic, a traumatic or a sudden death through drug poisoning or, indeed, through suicide or homicide is devastating for those who are left to grieve. Sometimes it can result in long-term mental and physical health impacts — PTSD and a whole range of physical concerns.

Margaret Collin, grieving the sudden death of her son Joshua, speaks of her experience in a traumatic loss bereavement support group. She said: “I found it helpful to just be in a group of other people going through similar things. It helped me to see firsthand that I wasn’t alone in this. It’s so important for the health of the community, because it’s almost impossible to grieve in isolation. You need the support of other people, and hospice gave me that.”

I invite you to support the health of those grieving the death of a loved one through an investment in community hospices. Just over half a million dollars, or $50,000 in annual funding for each bereavement program on Vancouver Island, will leverage community contributions to support the physical and mental health of thousands of people across the Island grieving the death of a loved one. We know that this good care has a ripple effect on the health of our communities.

We also endorse the work being done by Victoria Hospice to support accreditation standards for community hospice in B.C. and the work done by the B.C. Hospice Palliative Care Association to raise awareness of the needs of grieving people.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Gretchen. We’ll now ask you some questions.

G. Kyllo: Hi, Gretchen. Thank you very much for your presentation, and thank you for the very important work that you do.

Have you guys captured or do you have any statistics with reference…? In the absence of the services you provide, I would assume that somebody that’s lost a loved one would put additional pressure on the health care system, whether it’s seeking out help from your family doctor or family physician and other types of services. I would assume that the services you provide are extremely cost-effective when compared to the bereavement services or the pressure it may put on the medical system.

Are there any statistics or data that are captured either here in B.C. or from other countries that we could look to, to see if every dollar that’s invested in your service actually saves us $2 or $3 in the medical system? I would assume that that would probably be the case.

G. Hartley: That would be a useful piece of research. There is a growing body of research that shows that good care at this time does result in savings in health care. I haven’t got a number on the tip of my tongue.

G. Kyllo: I can only just imagine, also, the impact on the economy. People that are going through grieving processes — the time away from work and all of what that impact is. I think quite often many of the presenters that have come before this committee talk about the ounce of prevention or the pound of cure.

G. Hartley: Exactly.

G. Kyllo: We will pay at some point in time. I would assume that the services that your organization provides across the Island are very cost-effective. I don’t want to sound crass by talking about the very important services you provide being in dollars and cents, but I think in making an argument or a case for additional funding, it certainly would go a long away. If there’s any of that information around, the goal that you can look to, I think, would probably be helpful for the committee.

[4:30 p.m.]

G. Hartley: It would be useful to have some dollar amounts. It would be a good piece of research. That preventive piece is a challenging thing methodologically to show, but there is a growing body of research.

Across the Island outside Victoria, the hospices raise about $2.5 million a year. One example is Pacific Rim Hospice. I think they said their budget last year was $130,000, so most of that will be raised in that community, and they served over 700 people in terms of bereavement care alone. That’s not talking about people with serious illness.

I believe it is cost effective, and it is, again, well supported by community. But it would be nice to know what that preventative, actual dollar number is.

J. Routledge (Chair): Any other questions?

Well, with that, Gretchen, I want to thank you on behalf of the committee for coming and speaking to us and making these very compassionate recommendations.

You’re not the first one to speak to this committee this week, making these kinds of recommendations. But it’s sad to say that it is a new concept, really. Most of us have lost loved ones, and most of us have just had to figure it out. To acknowledge what that does to the individual, and what that does to our society — that this is just a phase of life and we just get over it at some point — doesn’t seem like the kind of society that we think we want to build, does it?

Our next presenter is Nola Galloway, Family Councils of B.C. Steering Committee.

Nola, you have five minutes to make your presentation. We will signal you when you have 30 seconds left so you know it’s time to wrap it up, and then we’ll move right into five minutes of questions and your answers to those questions.

FAMILY COUNCILS OF B.C.
STEERING COMMITTEE

N. Galloway: Hello. My name is Nola Galloway, and I’m pleased to represent the Family Councils of B.C. Steering Committee. This committee exists to promote the establishment of a provincial association of family councils for long-term care in B.C.

First, I’d like to take us back to 2009, the date our Ombudsperson released her public report titled The Best of Care: Getting it Right for Seniors (Part 1). The Ombudsperson undertook a major systemic investigation into the care of B.C.’s most frail and vulnerable seniors — those residing in residential care facilities. They identified three areas where they believed straightforward changes could quickly improve the residents’ quality of life.

One area focussed on was clarifying and providing support for the role of resident and family councils. The report states that the effectiveness of resident and family councils is currently limited by the lack of a provincial mechanism or process to provide them with encouragement and support in the absence of any coordinated response to systemic issues they raise.

The Ombudsperson recommended that the Ministry of Health entrench an expanded role for resident and family councils in legislation or regulation and that it be done by March of 2010. Now, here we are in 2021, more than a decade later, and our ministry has not implemented any changes in legislation or regulation.

In November of 2020, our seniors advocate released her report titled Staying Apart to Stay Safe, with the results of a provincewide survey on the impact of visitor restrictions. The results revealed a lack of voice for residents and families in the decision-making of how we manage our long-term-care system. Those who operate care homes are represented by industry associations. Staff who work in the care homes are represented by their unions. These groups are often who the government consults with when they refer to stakeholders in the long-term-care sector. Currently there is no similar standard bearer who speaks for residents and family members.

[4:35 p.m.]

This was a gap that existed prior to the pandemic, but as with many things, the pandemic revealed why it is a gap we need to close. To achieve this, the office of the seniors advocate recommends that the Ministry of Health work with their office to establish a long-term-care resident and family council association. The association would bring to the table the voice of residents and their family members in equal measure with those who own and operate care homes and the staff who work there.

As families who have loved ones in long-term care begin to emerge from the agonizing impact of COVID, many questions and concerns are being raised across B.C. The COVID experience has revealed many weaknesses in long-term care, the effects of which were felt by one community after another. And it has heightened the importance of family councils and of having a guaranteed voice in decisions that affect their loved ones in care.

We heard from many families during the pandemic who were frightened at the vulnerability of their loved one and how decisions were being made. There are lessons to be learned from this pandemic. For us, one of the most important lessons learned and that devastated families was that the vast majority of families feel like they had absolutely zero input into policies designed by the Ministry of Health to meet the, admittedly, very challenging situation.

The thing is that the families had important collective information and ideas to share with the Ministry of Health that would’ve helped with their planning. But that didn’t happen. And families know that kind of input is sought from every other stakeholder in long-term care but not from them. Establishing a provincial association of family councils would finally mean a voice for families, a voice coming from the very people sending loved ones into care and would be for the very people whom long-term-care policy is designed to help.

There could not be a more effective, more supportive, more forward-thinking, more curative message sent to residents and their families than for the Ministry of Health to announce they would create and fund a provincial association of family councils. Never has there been more urgency and public support to reform and improve the way care is provided and quality of life is supported.

In April of 2021, a report titled Improving Quality of Life in Long-term Care was submitted to the Minister of Health by the Action for Reform of Residential Care, ARRCBC. The implementation of the recommendations contained in the ARRCBC report could situate B.C. as a national and international leader in the care of one of the most vulnerable populations in society.

In closing, the Family Councils of B.C.’s Steering Committee appeal to our government to make the two following recommendations a priority in the 2022 provincial budget. First, for the Ministry of Health to act on the office of the seniors advocate’s recommendation that the voice of residents and their family members must be embedded in decisions on how we shape our long-term-care system, going forward.

The Ministry of Health needs to collaborate with the office of the seniors advocate to create a provincial association of long-term-care resident and family councils and for our government to act on ARRCBC’s recommendations for the Minister of Health to strike a multi-stakeholder task force to development a post-COVID provincial action plan, focusing on resident quality of life, quality of work environment, a mandated voice for families, and increased accountability for care in public funds.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Nola.

I’ll now invite members of the committee to ask their questions.

M. Dykeman: Thank you for your presentation. It was wonderful. Listening to your presentation and then reading the submission you put in….

At what point are these conversations at? Has there been any conversation? Has there been initial one, then perhaps it stopped? Where are things with this right now?

N. Galloway: Right now we are waiting to have further discussions with the seniors advocate. As you are aware, she is the one that brought this recommendation forward. We are all so very thankful for it and really hope that it will proceed.

[4:40 p.m.]

As far as the ARRC report that’s out there, I know that they met with Mable Elmore, I believe it is. There have been discussions on the possibility of putting some sort of a task force together, but there hasn’t been any real commitment yet. They’re meeting quarterly, basically. They’ve had a couple of meetings already.

M. Dykeman: Just to clarify, with the first recommendation with the seniors advocate, was there a conversation and then a recommendation, or have you had conversations since the recommendation?

N. Galloway: No, I haven’t had a conversation. We haven’t had a conversation with the seniors advocate since the recommendation.

M. Dykeman: Thank you very much, and thank you for your presentation.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): Thanks very much, Nola.

Having seen firsthand issues in the care homes, not just personally but in my riding during the last 20-some months, I guess I wonder what this cost and how this structure would operate. Have you got any…? I mean, at this point, I know that these are recommendations, but what about implementing something like this? What’s it going to take?

N. Galloway: I think what was stated by the seniors advocate was that they could put it together for as little as $500,000, to put the provincial association together.

That association would likely, I would think, be a non-profit, probably a registered non-profit. It would consist of people that are basically hired to lead the association. Those people would then reach out to all the many hundreds of family councils right across B.C. and be able to support those councils. They would be able to provide research.

Most importantly, there would be a way for us to communicate. Rather than just operating in silos, we would be able to communicate through the provincial association and to have a seat at the table with the other stakeholders. Right now residents and families are totally missing from that, and they would be a very valuable stakeholder to hear from.

After all, when you think about it, it’s the residents and families that are spending time in the facilities. They’re well positioned to be able to bring forward concerns and recommendations, and that is missing right now. We have no way to bring anything forward to the provincial government, to the ministry. Basically, with the family councils the way they are now, we operate within one particular facility, and that’s it. You’re dealing with the operator of the facility, but we’re not getting our concerns and recommendations further, where they should be taken to.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, I’m sorry to say we are out of time.

Thank you, Nola, for bringing this to our attention. I think, for sure, COVID shone a spotlight on the sense of powerlessness that the families of loved ones in long-term care feel. But it was a spotlight. It didn’t start with COVID. It was already there.

N. Galloway: Absolutely.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you for taking this initia­tive.

N. Galloway: Thank you for the time.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Brenda Hooker, school district 71, Comox Valley.

Brenda, you have five minutes. We will give you a signal when you have 30 seconds to go so you can wrap it up, and then we’ll have five minutes of questions.

SCHOOL DISTRICT 71, COMOX VALLEY

B. Hooker: First of all, on behalf of school district 71, I want to thank you for allowing us to do a presentation today.

We’re here presenting on behalf of the K-to-12 sector. We’ve prepared a written submission, which you have, so I won’t go through that in detail. I just wanted to touch on some of the things that we wanted to advocate for in this year’s finances for consideration.

We know that you have a lot of asks and a lot of people that come. There’s a lot of demand, especially, as you were mentioning, with COVID and the highlights of COVID. It’s shown various areas where we have challenges.

Firstly, one of the things that we’ve been struggling with is mental health in schools and the challenges we have around supporting those needs. We really do need to have long-term, sustained funding in order to provide staffing to provide services for kids.

[4:45 p.m.]

I’ll give you an example of a recent incident. We had a critical incident that involved some minors outside of the school. It was on a Saturday. There were some injuries that occurred, and it was a very critical incident with kids that were sent to the hospital. The only people in the community who were available to help those kids were our school-based staff. So even though the incident happened outside of school hours and in the community, it was our staff, who already have extensive workloads, that had to try and step in and help provide the services for children.

We really need more people. We need funding for staff. As you know, staffing is expensive. It’s a long-term, committed cost that requires sustained funding. Districts are reluctant to provide that staffing if they don’t know that the funding is going to be ongoing. One-time grants are sometimes a challenge to really get the resources where they need to be.

The other thing we talked about in our submission was the way that COVID has challenged our facilities. It’s always been a struggle to provide ongoing maintenance for our many buildings. Of our schools that we have in the Comox Valley, over 60 percent are rated poor or very poor by the provincial standards.

We have difficulty maintaining those at the best of times. With COVID, we found that costs have increased considerably. Our costs for repairing items — lumber, all those things — have gone up, on average, 20 percent. So already challenges around deferred maintenance have been even more difficult with the rising costs of COVID.

For example, we had a windstorm and a rainstorm a few weeks ago, and five of our buildings sprung leaks in the roofs. So we were running around…. Our facility staff was trying to put buckets out and keep people from being injured because of the situation that we were having. That’s an ongoing, regular occurrence.

We really appreciate the annual facility grant that we do receive. We use every dollar of it. But it’s a challenge when unexpected expenses come up that we have to try and fund throughout the year. It’s a safety issue, as well as providing clean, effective, 21st-century learning spaces for children.

That’s one of our asks. We’d really like the ministry to consider increasing the annual facility grant so that we can direct it to where it’s most needed on an ongoing basis.

Another initiative that we wanted to raise awareness around was the ministry’s initiative for the framework for enhancing student learning and the directives to in­crease…. The idea, and it’s fantastic, is to really help improve life chances for kids, and the coordinated efforts between school plans, district strategic plans and the ministry directives….

In order to be able to really effectively enact that vision, we need to have some resources in order to be able to do effective strategic planning and community consultations. Those types of things are really important for us to be able to really make a difference for kids and to improve the success rates of children.

The last thing, of course, is…. We’re in a bargaining year, and we want to make sure that all of the increases that are negotiated are fully funded for all of our staff. Currently only unionized staff receive the funding. Any principals, vice-principals or exempt staff aren’t funded, so that has to come out of our operating dollars. That was the other thing that we wanted to bring forward.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Brenda.

Megan has a question.

M. Dykeman: Thank you for your presentation today. I know, from my years on school board, there were always challenges with the list you have in here.

Now, recommendation No. 1 that you have related to personnel over a multi-year time frame. I understand the challenges with the one-time grants. I mean, those are especially challenging with staffing.

The question I have, though, is…. It sounds like, in your community at least, there’s a lot of strain even outside of hours. Now, what type of staff would you see being your boots on the ground? If you were able to have additional staff to support mental health challenges, where would you be looking at directing that?

[4:50 p.m.]

B. Hooker: Last year, for example, we got some COVID-related money, which was really appreciated. We used that to fund some youth and family workers that would give outreach not just in schools but directly to families — to connect families that weren’t, maybe, attending regularly at school. We found that that was a really good community support. We’d be looking for counsellor supports and stuff.

The other thing. Our district is one of the pilot districts for the Pathways to Hope, but that was announced, like, three years ago. We still have yet to get to the point where we’re able to do some staffing regarding that. It’s a challenge as far as — sometimes when it’s cross-ministry initiatives — getting it to be operationalized.

That’s really what we would hope. We’re pretty well resourced for supplies, but we need people. That’s a challenge provincially. I know it’s also a challenge around training and filling some of those vacant positions. Any­thing we could do to help that would be much appreciated. Getting the Pathways to Hope initiative actually operational would be fantastic, as well, in the K-to-12 sector.

M. Dykeman: Wonderful. Thank you so much.

G. Kyllo: Is your enrolment increasing significantly?

B. Hooker: Yes. Last year we saw a significant enrolment increase because we have an extensive distance learning program, so with COVID, we saw a significant increase there of over 1,000 students. This year our enrolment is up around 350 students beyond what we had predicted. We’re seeing a real influx into the valley, which then strains the existing resources for medical supports and all those types of things.

G. Kyllo: Do you have capacity within the existing schools in order to accommodate the students, or are you having to purchase portables? That was something that we heard earlier today.

B. Hooker: We have quite a few portables. That’s a challenge, because the ministry doesn’t fund portables through their capital funds, so that comes out of operating dollars. For example, one of our smaller elementary schools is at 200 percent capacity.

G. Kyllo: Wow. So how many portables would you have in total in the school district right now?

B. Hooker: Right now we have around 40 portables. At that one school that’s 200 percent capacity, we have nine portables. It strains the water and sewer systems. It is a small, rural school that is very full.

G. Kyllo: Are you having to acquire additional portables this year?

B. Hooker: Yes. We installed three new portables this year, and we’ll probably be having to do that next year. The challenge is that sometimes we don’t always have the space to put a portable in and to make it have the washroom facilities that the children would need, etc. So that’s a challenge.

G. Kyllo: Have you had any new schools in the last number of years?

B. Hooker: We have. We’ve been very blessed. We had a fire on Hornby Island, and we were just able to replace that school. It’s opening next week. We also had a seismic upgrade for Lake Trail Community School. We’ve been very blessed by the capital branch in getting additional new schools, but we are advocating for a replacement at Cumberland Elementary, which is also over capacity. We’d really like to see that, which would help address some of the other portable issues.

G. Kyllo: I had one other question. I’m not all that familiar with the different facilities grants. Obviously, a brand-new school does not require a lot of maintenance and repair; an old school, a lot. Does the government fund the school districts based on the age of the school? Do they take into consideration a funding formula based on the age of the school and the requirement for additional maintenance on an older school?

B. Hooker: No. It’s based on a formula that’s mostly based on the number of students you have. So with increasing enrolment, then we do, but the annual facility grant has remained fixed for a number of years. For example, the Royston school I mentioned was built in 1916. It’s been added on to a couple of times, and now we have nine portables in order to accommodate the enrolment growth that’s needed there. As you can imagine, that’s a challenge for our facilities department and the dollars we receive.

G. Kyllo: Absolutely.

B. Hooker: Our district receives just over $1.7 million to maintain 25 buildings. We have a lot of square footage and a lot of classrooms. Out of that comes all of our costs related to facilities.

J. Routledge (Chair): We’re out of time.

G. Kyllo: Okay. Well, thank you very much.

B. Hooker: I appreciate your questions.

[4:55 p.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Brenda, thank you so much for coming and making a presentation. This is our second-to-last day of hearing presentations. We want you to know that this is…. You’re not the first to come and give us concrete details and information about a K-to-12 system that is under pressure. Thank you so much for adding your voice and for providing local examples, community examples.

B. Hooker: If there are any follow-up questions or anything, we are always glad to provide more information if that’s necessary. Thank you very much for taking the time to meet with us.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Bruce Curtis, Community Justice Centre of the Comox Valley. Bruce, you have five minutes to make your presentation. We’ll help you out by signalling you when you only have 30 seconds left so that you can wrap it up, and then we’ll ask you some questions.

COMMUNITY JUSTICE CENTRE

B. Curtis: The Community Justice Centre would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to make a pre­sentation today in addition to our written brief, which we have already circulated to you.

There is no doubt that, as a committee, you receive innumerable presentations and briefs urging budget allo­cations for significantly equally innumerable important aspects of provincial life and work. I want to assure you that I will not be a disappointment to you in that respect. However, the numbers that I am asking for are pretty trivial relative to the numbers that you must deal with in total.

We’re a small, independent, community-based non-profit organization, a community-based restorative justice program that’s been operating for 22 years and deals with between 100 and 150 files per year. These are files that do not go to the courts, do not require legal representation, do not take up judicial time or enforcement or incarceration thereafter.

I’m presuming that all of you know about what restora­tive justice is and how it operates, basically. That’s really all that you need to know, quite frankly. Restorative justice is an alternative system of justice that brings to bear the compassion and the sense of community from the members of the Comox Valley.

There are endless reports that attest to success rates for restorative justice. If you wanted to read any one of the 300 that I’ve read, I would be willing to send them all to you. I can’t imagine that you will want to, because you are very busy MLAs.

Each of the programs that operate in the province may operate in a slightly different way, accommodating community needs and community differences — differences in population and demographics, and so on. But they all have the common, deep desire to provide an alternative to the court-based system of prosecution and civil trials.

What I’d like to do today is share with you at least one of the stories that have arisen in our program so that you can see the human face of citizens who are given the opportunity to experience restorative justice to resolve a conflict that they have become involved with. That is regardless of whether it’s a criminal prosecution or a criminal case referred by the RCMP, or a community-based dispute that is between neighbours, or if it is referred by an organi­zation which would like to have this kind of an approach to resolving those problems, such as the school district or MCFD or the elder abuse advisors.

The story I want to tell you about is from a while ago. Of course, I am not going to disclose any details about the specific individuals involved, because everything that restorative justice does is confidential.

One evening a group of young men were walking around our community, drinking and trying to think of something to do. On impulse, they entered the garden of an elderly woman and simply trashed it. They pulled up plants. They smashed garden structures and generally destroyed the place. The very frightened elderly woman called the police, who managed to apprehend the young men.

[5:00 p.m.]

The officer considered the incident very strongly and very deeply and for a considerable bit of time before concluding that criminal prosecution was not going to have a positive impact on these individuals, nor would it give the complainant any ensuing resolution. He exercised his permitted discretion and sent the matter to restorative justice.

At the resolution conference, the elderly woman heard from the young people that she had not been targeted for any particular reason. The gist of it is that she was able to go through the resolution conference and receive the assurance and confidently know that she did not bring it on. She was not responsible for it. And the youth who were involved were able to hear her side of the story and understand what that garden meant to her and genuinely experience remorse, regret and a desire to make amends.

The woman died a couple of years later, and at her funeral, one of these young men arrived, stood at the back. When the others had left for the tea and crumpets and so on that are usually following a funeral, he went up and placed seven roses on the casket of this woman. He had become the representative of that group of young men, and he was able to express their loss of the time that they had with her.

Those are the human stories of restorative justice. That’s what grants to restorative justice programs fund. So I would encourage you to fund us.

M. Dykeman: Thank you so much for your presen­tation. I had the privilege when I was on school board to meet regularly with Dan Basham, with the restorative action program. This program is very much valued within the Langley school district, so it’s great to hear about the work you’re doing in your community and the value and stories like this that bring it to life.

My question is…. With your recommendation 4 in your written submission, you talk about funding allocations which would permit delivery of enhanced services in schools. Is this in all schools? What does enhanced delivery look like in the schools? What would you like to see happen?

B. Curtis: Currently we receive referrals of files from the school board. Direct referrals are authorized for the principals, and teachers can be involved in that decision as well. They often involve matters that are a bit tangential to the classroom — behaviour that’s on the school grounds, behaviour that’s on the way to or from school, community behaviour that reflects poorly on the school and occasionally property damage. We’ve had a couple of arson cases from schools that have been referred to us, and so on.

We do restorative justice on files that are referred to us. What we’re talking about with the funding for school-based RJ is to roll out a program in which teachers and administrators are taught restorative justice. The Justice Centre would provide support and assistance of professional facilitators to assist them on each individual case.

In fact, we have previously proposed that the program be related to an approved course called restorative justice 11-12, which would teach students the same skills and allow them to function as, sort of, the pro tem administrators of referrals of restorative justice involving students in the schools. It has worked successfully in Mission, and it has worked successfully in other programs.

Frankly, we had offered the school district a fairly largely sum of funds that had accumulated in our reserve accounts for educational reserves, but unfortunately, they were unable to implement the program because of rising enrolment, declining funding and priorities that were established by outside forces. So they weren’t able to actually move ahead with it.

Ultimately, because our accountants wanted to be in compliance with Revenue Canada, we had to allocate that funding to another project, so we no longer actually have it. However, it was allocated to the Walking With Our Sisters exhibition that occurred in the Comox Valley, one of the two places in British Columbia that that travelling exhibition was able to appear.

[5:05 p.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay. Not seeing any other questions, Bruce, I want to thank you so much for coming to speak to the committee to give us some insight into restorative justice.

The story that you shared was very, very powerful. I know you probably wanted to go into it in a lot more detail, but I think we got the essence of what you were trying to convey to us. The notion of teachers being taught restorative justice is very compelling. Thank you so much for your time.

Our next presenter is Anthony Everett, B.C. Regional Tourism Secretariat.

Anthony, you have five minutes. We will signal to you when you have 30 seconds left so that you’ll know to wrap it up. Then we’ll move into questions for another five minutes.

B.C. REGIONAL TOURISM SECRETARIAT

A. Everett: Thank you for the opportunity to present to you today.

I’m on the traditional territories of the Snuneymuxw First Nation. It’s where I’m proud to live, work and play.

As you know, I’m Anthony Everett. I’m the president and CEO of Tourism Vancouver Island, and I am the chair of the B.C. Regional Tourism Secretariat. The five regional destination management organizations that make up the BCRTS represent the tourism operators that help create amazing experiences and products across B.C.

The five of us — Cariboo Chilcotin Coast Tourism Association, Kootenay Rockies Tourism Association, Northern B.C. Tourism Association and the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association, as well as Tourism Vancouver Island — are working every day, on our own and together, to ensure that tourism is valued and welcomed by communities and that visitors have a great experience in every community they visit. We exist to work with communities, businesses and visitors to ensure that tourism is sustainable, viable and contributes to all regions in B.C.

By working with tourism operators who are delivering every type of service in every community, we are directly connected to the on-the-ground experiences of the tourism sector, its challenges, its needs and its opportunities. Things have looked a bit different these past 19 months. As my colleagues prior to me, before your committee, have mentioned, the tourism industry was the hardest hit in the province and is only slowly returning. There has been a return of national travel, but it is still a fraction of what it used to be.

Major drivers like conventions, business travel and international travel vanished and are not likely to return quickly. It was thanks to the support of provincial business programs that many of the operators were able to survive. That help enabled them to pivot and adapt through the ups and downs of the pandemic, but many businesses did not survive, changing the tourism landscape. This is another reason that recovery is going to be challenging. Recovery is also going to be long and take a number of years, and it will look very different from region to region and community to community.

All of this is compounded by the continued effects of climate change, from wildfires to floods, that impact all aspects of British Columbians’ lives, including tourism. In fact, one of the main reasons our five regional organi­zations came together to form the BCRTS was to tackle emergency management. Without a coordinated approach from the tourism sector, a wildfire season or flooding can drive a large number of unnecessary cancellations. Due to a lack of information, travellers will cancel a trip to an area untouched by the emergency.

We also came together to coordinate on provincewide tourism issues like compression — too many tourists going to the same place; dispersion — encouraging visitors to visit less visited parts of the province; and destination development — helping operators enhance the experiences they are offering the travelling public.

BCRTS wants to continue to work with the province to help with tourism recovery through regional emergency management coordination, direct business support programs such as our current Tourism Resiliency Network, decentralized destination development initiatives and sustainable tourism industry programs, like the BCRTS-led Responsible Tourism Institute biosphere program. These initiatives can help deliver a sustainable visitor economy. Ongoing support from the province to our organizations will help speed the sector’s recovery and help move it forward to a brighter future.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you very much, Anthony. I will invite members of the committee to ask you some questions and maybe dig a bit deeper into some of the things that you’ve said.

[5:10 p.m.]

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): I can only imagine, Anthony, what the last almost two years have been like. I know that one of the events I look forward to attending, the Comox Valley seafood festival, was postponed. It was one that I know was a world-class event.

I guess, kind of looking ahead here, what are the secretariat’s needs in terms of how we can help the tourism groups that are on Vancouver Island? What are the things that are the top priorities for your group?

A. Everett: I’ll be speaking for all five regions when I answer your question.

Specifically, emergency management, our coordination…. This is the first year that we did not receive funds through the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport to help assist businesses in the coordination of emergency management. We have had that prior. We have teams and databases. We have systems in place that keep us coordinated. That’s one thing.

The next one is the tourism resiliency program. We are advising close to 2,000 businesses now provincewide to help them through the recovery. Now that summer’s over, we’ve actually seen an increase in businesses registering with our program. There’s a whole set of experts that are helping businesses achieve recovery. That’s necessary for the future.

Those are the two top priorities. Of course, I mentioned our work in the biosphere, sustainable tourism and desti­nation development. All those things together will help us recover into the future. That’s around the province again. I’m here as five organizations today.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): I guess the only thing I would do…. As tourism organizations, I think that it’s important that you go on record. You have until tomorrow at five to send in a written summation of that and what investments you’d like as the five destination marketing organizations. I really would encourage you to do that.

We may have heard from some other tourism associations, but I think you’re the first destination tourism organization we’ve heard from. We’ve been in Prince George, Kamloops, Kelowna and Victoria. We do need to hear from you.

L. Doerkson: Anthony, thanks for your presentation.

You mentioned that this was the first year that you haven’t received funding for EMBC. Two questions. One: how long have you been funded for that? Secondly, what was your role in that?

A. Everett: It was two years prior to this fiscal. This summer season — it was years prior to that. It was allowing us to plug in directly. We each had a dedicated person during the summer flooding season in each of our offices around the province that worked directly with EMBC and helped coordinate.

As an example, this year, we did it anyway. We were doing this work when there were evacuees that needed to go use hotels, etc., in the Okanagan. We helped EMBC do that in the Okanagan, but additionally around the province. Even here on Vancouver Island, we helped place people in hotels. That’s just one example.

L. Doerkson: How much was the funding that you received from EMBC?

A. Everett: The total envelope would have been, I think, $200,000. So $25,000 a region and $75,000 that was shared amongst us for training, database work and things like that.

L. Doerkson: Sorry, say that again — $200,000….

A. Everett: So $200,000 total. Five regions, $25,000 a region.

L. Doerkson: Perfect. Thanks, Anthony.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, I see no other questions, Anthony. On behalf of the committee, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to come and speak to us. I, for one, want to give some more thought to the role of tourism in emergencies. I’m certainly familiar with tourism having been a victim of crises and having been a victim of the pandemic, but what you’ve presented is an entirely different perspective. That is tourism as leaders in helping us get through what can be very traumatic crises.

Thank you so much for that. You’ve given me some food for thought — and all of us, I think.

Our next presenter is Danielle Paydli, Canadian Freshwater Alliance.

[5:15 p.m.]

D. Paydli: Thank you. Should I just jump in?

J. Routledge (Chair): Yes, you’ve got five minutes. We’ll give you the signal when there are 30 seconds…. You can wrap up, and then we’ll ask questions.

D. Paydli: I’ve timed it a few times, so I should be okay. We’ll see.

CANADIAN FRESHWATER ALLIANCE

D. Paydli: Thank you so much for having me. My name is Danielle Paydli.

I live on Stz’uminus First Nation territory.

I work with the Canadian Freshwater Alliance, which is a national initiative that builds, unites and activates networks of freshwater champions. I’m grateful to say that I’m part of a larger community of water groups within B.C. who all work together openly, collaboratively and tirelessly toward an end goal of healthy watersheds in our province.

I had this really wonderful opportunity within my first year at CFA, in 2019, to do a bit of a minitour of B.C. and meet some of these awesome organizations, many of which, I think, you’ve had the opportunity to meet along your journeys this past month. It was, sort of, this headfirst jump into this world of water.

During my travels, I visited with community members in Peachland, where, despite sitting down together over the most delicious wine and cheese — because we were in Peachland — and overlooking the beautiful Okanagan Lake, our conversation was filled with concerns over the impact that the massive clearcuts, which I’d witnessed on my drive in, would have on their community water supply.

I popped a little further north and met with Chief Christian at the Splatsin Community Centre, which, if you haven’t been there, is just this beautiful building that captures the cultural history of Splatsin. The centre’s roof is designed to resemble a kekuli, a traditional winter shelter that’s been planted with greenery to provide sustainability and act as an important water recovery and reuse feature.

Again, despite being in this gorgeous place in our province, our conversations turned to the devastating contamination of their watershed due to poor agricultural and land use practices, for which the key decision-makers for the Splatsin community did not have a seat at the decision-making table.

I’ve grabbed coffee with the groups in the bustling downtown core of Vancouver and neighbouring Coquitlam, where it can be really easy to forget that, although these communities have a protected watershed, the majority of British Columbian communities don’t. Despite that fact, these communities aren’t resting on their laurels. They’ve all built really successful models of stakeholder engagement and are working toward the many challenges they still face.

I made my way to Golden to meet with some awesome women at the pub, some moms that got together to fight a water-bottling operation, trying to pull water from their aquifer to export for profit. And I ended my trip with an opportunity to learn how to collect data on Lake Windermere. It was the trip of a lifetime, but that was only a handful of folks working in water in a few places in the province.

I may be sounding a bit nostalgic, but with COVID, I’m really missing the opportunity to meet with these water champions in person and see firsthand how amazing and resilient our communities and our watersheds are all across B.C. But I’m heartened to know that there are individuals, organizations and nations who are ready — feet on the ground, partnerships developed, mad in-house knowledge. Now they need the funding that was promised by the provincial government in their mandates to create a watershed security fund.

Changing the way we manage water in this province will allow for local communities to have a say in how their watersheds are managed, especially First Nations communities who have to be co-leading this work — not consulted but co-leading, with real decision-making authority. The forest fires this summer and severe drought have set off alarm bells in communities all across the province, and the risks associated with not protecting water are being better understood and deeply felt in our communities.

I know you’ve heard from others and have received resources outlining what this fund could look like, so I’ll just do a little mini-recap to refresh your memories and to open up space for any outstanding questions that you might have.

In the next provincial budget, we want to see a commitment to a dedicated and ongoing fund with a $75 million annual investment in B.C.’s watershed security. This could be an important boost to local economies, creating a surge of good jobs and leveraging additional funding from other sources, including the private and philanthropic sectors.

A long-term, sustainable fund will also be a very tangible investment in support of the rights of Indigenous people. As I mentioned, if designed and governed in partnership with B.C.’s First Nations, this fund can be a clear demonstration of reconciliation in action. Such a fund is imperative to ensure critical habitats are restored and protected to safeguard wild salmon survival and for so many other fish and wildlife populations.

In 2019, this committee stated the government ought to “advance water sustainability in British Columbia by providing a dedicated, sustainable, annual funding source for First Nations, local government, local watershed protection agencies and community partnerships.” In 2020, you recommended, yet again, that the government “advance water sustainability in British Columbia by pro­viding a dedicated, sustainable, annual funding source….” These recommendations were key to getting this commitment into party platforms and mandate letters.

[5:20 p.m.]

We’re deeply grateful for the support over the past two years. Now we need to see these promises reflected in Budget 2020. I want to see our kids and our grandkids have the opportunity to splash around in clean lakes and streams, taste wild salmon that they’ve caught on their very own fishing lines, and take over a healthy, thriving family farm, if that’s their dream. We can make this a reality if we invest now in the health of our watersheds.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Danielle.

Questions for Danielle?

G. Kyllo: Hi, Danielle. Happy to hear that you got up to Splatsin territory, up in Enderby, and met with Chief Christian.

The $75 million. How did you guys arrive at that number? I’m understanding that you’re looking for $75 million a year, each and every year. This is not just a fund that would be utilized…. It’s a pretty big ask. Just wondering how you identified or came up with that particular number.

D. Paydli: That’s a very good question. Basically, there was a survey conducted by Watersheds B.C. So this is a couple of years in the making, obviously. There have been, kind of, different numbers that we’ve been looking at, at different times, and trying to really assess what number is realistic and a number that is going to actually change the way we manage water in the province.

Just in 2020 here, a survey was conducted by Watersheds B.C. and the Polis Project at the University of Victoria. They identified that we needed between $50 million and $75 million annually because the need for projects — the communities that were ready to go, with over 140 projects that had been compiled — the funding need, was about $200 million over a two- to three-year period. There was also recognition that it’s probably just the tip of the iceberg in what we could do.

In terms of the amount of that money, I feel like I really should have…. I was looking at this just before I came in. I realize I don’t actually have the reference for it, but I do have it from some really amazing watershed champions. This is equivalent to about 4 percent of building a bridge over one river.

I know it sounds like a lot, but I think it’s a really amazing investment in terms of what could possibly be done, for jobs within the watershed, job creation and reconciliation, and kind of working towards all of the different things that the government has put forward as within their mandates and within multiple mandates. It can really affect a lot of those.

H. Sandhu: Thank you, Danielle, for your presentation and the work that you’re doing. I, too, have those great champions in my community of Vernon-Monashee, and I used to go support them too.

I know in, I believe, March of 2021 there was $27 million given to watersheds for watershed security. I believe it was going to help at least 70 watersheds. Have you seen the direct impact of that money? How far did that money go? How many watersheds do you know that are not protected in B.C. — only if you have the numbers?

D. Paydli: I won’t have exact numbers, to be honest. The watersheds that are protected in B.C. are basically those around Vancouver and Victoria. Those are it. All of the rural B.C. don’t have protected watersheds. That is something that a lot of people don’t know. It is a concerning fact.

In terms of the $27 million, that $27 million was funding for economic recovery from COVID. It is short term. It is ending. But in the time that it has been here, I believe it’s 60 projects that it has been funding — over 60 projects — and has created over 700 jobs. And 25 of the 60 projects are Indigenous-led or have a significant impact in Indigenous communities and have created many Indigenous jobs.

I say small. I mean $27…. It was amazing. We were all celebrating, so I don’t want to diminish at all. But what can be done with that amount of money and then seeing what could happen if there was something that was long term, that was consistent, that we could count on…. I can’t even imagine what the results of that would be.

H. Sandhu: I just wanted to get the sense, as I see the ask is to have something permanent and sustainable. I do agree: water is life, and our kids will thank us for that.

Thank you for giving me…. I remember that it was, I think, approximately 70 watersheds. I received a positive email in my constituency office celebrating that it did help a bit. Thank you for sharing.

[5:25 p.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Danielle. We are pretty well out of time. Thank you so much for adding your voice to the many voices who have been speaking to us about the importance of watersheds. It’s been quite an education.

I really want to thank you for concluding your presentation by talking about the specific experiences that our children and grandchildren can have if we protect our watersheds. Of course, what’s unsaid is what will happen to them if we don’t. So thank you so much for that.

We have a bit of a recess coming up, but first we’re going to hear from Samantha Gambling, B.C. chapter of the Coalition for Healthy School Food.

S. Gambling: Hello. That was a great presentation, by the way. I wholeheartedly agree with her recommendations. I’m going to throw that in there.

J. Routledge (Chair): Let’s make a note of that.

COALITION FOR HEALTHY SCHOOL FOOD,
B.C. CHAPTER

S. Gambling: Hopefully you’re not too tired of listening to people. I will try to be brief.

Hi, everyone. My name is Sam. I’m here on behalf of the B.C. chapter of the Coalition for Healthy School Food, which is administered by the Public Health Association of B.C.

I’m grateful to be here tonight on Snuneymuxw lands.

I’m here to recommend to this committee that the B.C. government invest in universal, cost-shared healthy school food programs for K-to-12 students across the province.

The Coalition for Healthy School Food is a national network of 176 organizations advocating for public investment in a Canada-wide school food program that meets guiding principles such as health promotion, universality, connection to curriculum and community, flexibility to local conditions and Indigenous food sovereignty.

Our 50-plus member and endorser organizations here in B.C. include school boards, municipalities, non-profits and community organizations from health, education and agriculture sectors, many of whom work directly in schools to deliver or support breakfast, lunch, snack or other nutrition or food literacy programs, and all of whom share the belief that children and youth should have daily access to healthy food at school.

As a bit of background, studies show that, in B.C. and across Canada, children and youth consume insufficient and unhealthy diets with low fruit and vegetable consumption. This of course negatively impacts the child’s physical and mental health, as well as their academic performance, with long-term public health implications.

Around the world, universal school food programs that achieve food literacy and healthy eating behaviours from a young age are recognized as a valuable health-promotion policy. When combined with broader poverty-reduction strategies, school food programs can also alleviate the burden of food insecurity felt by families, and they can support local economies and resilient communities through thoughtful food procurement and community engagement. Today Canada remains the only G7 nation without a national school food program and is ranked 37th out of 41 high-income countries in providing access to healthy food for kids.

In B.C., of course, and across Canada, there are already some amazing successful programs, but they’re run at a classroom, school or school district scale, and they rely on parents or other members of the school community to develop and fund. This current patchwork of programming is underfunded, reaches only a small percentage of B.C. students and does not meet the need of hungry or undernourished students in our province.

We believe that the time is right to build on federal momentum for a Canada-wide school food program and for B.C. to be a leader — it’s already seen as a leader, across the country — in developing school food programs for K-to-12 students.

Members of the coalition in the B.C. chapter were really pleased that the 2020 mandate letters to the B.C. Ministers of Education and Agriculture included directives to work with school districts to create more local school meal programs. We ask that Budget 2022 take the next step in this commitment and allocate funds for meal programs in B.C. Specifically, we have three recommendations.

Firstly, we ask that the B.C. government commit to securing $50 million a year for three years to design, implement and evaluate research-based school food pilot programs in a minimum of six school districts across the province in diverse locations.

Evidence suggests that the creation of a provincewide universal school food program should be implemented incrementally, and research has shown that these programs are more likely to be effective when they’re designed in partnership with the local community and when interventions are piloted. These proposed pilots would explore and build on existing best practices and involve a strong research and evaluation component so we could test out costing and different school food models to inform the expansion to a provincewide program.

[5:30 p.m.]

We believe, also, that this $50 million could be shared with the federal government — so half from the province and half from the feds — and that pilots should comply with the coalition’s guiding principles.

Second, we ask that the B.C. government focus on building school district capacity for meal programs by allocating an additional $3 million of funding so that every school district in B.C. can hire a minimum of one full-time school meal program coordinator or equivalent dedicated staff.

Three, we recommend that the B.C. government create two task forces to support school food programs. The first would be an interdepartmental committee of staff from all ministries connected to school food, including Health, Education and Agriculture.

The second external task force should include stakeholders from diverse school communities who are impacted by school food programs, including representatives and members of the coalition. This task force would act as an advisory body to the government to support incremental implementation of school food programs across the province.

I’ve submitted a written letter than elaborates on these recommendations, but for now, I just want to thank you so much on behalf of PHABC and the B.C. chapter and all of our members from all corners of the province.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Sam.

Megan has a question.

M. Dykeman: Thank you for your presentation. I know, across the province, it’s a bit of a patchwork quilt with what’s available with lunch programs and school programs, generally, like breakfast programs.

Thank you for your submission. I read through your written one also. I’m wondering: have you had any conversations with the Feed B.C. initiative that’s going on through Agriculture, and where are those conversations?

S. Gambling: Yeah, so we are in close contact with staff from the Ministry of Agriculture. We’ve met a couple of times with Lana Popham.

There’s definitely interest to merge Feed B.C. into the school food initiative, as far as I understand. I believe that it would be really beneficial to the Feed B.C. program if we could procure locally through our food hubs that are popping up around the province. There’s a huge opportunity to merge the two together.

They’re really interested in the local food procurement piece, and I think if we can get a task force up and running, we could have these conversations and bring people in who have experience procuring locally already to see what the best practices are.

M. Dykeman: All right. Thank you so much.

L. Doerkson: Thank you very much for this presentation. It is a little bit of a passion of mine as well. I have a couple of questions about the funding.

We run a program in Williams Lake. It’s called starfish. There are difficulties not only in getting the food to the kids but getting good food all the time. I can appreciate those challenges, but we run it for 50 or so kids for $10,000 a year, type of thing. So how many kids are affected by a $50 million program? I guess that’s my question.

S. Gambling: This number of $50 million came from a recommendation from the national Coalition for Healthy School Food of a $5-a-day per student food program. This differs from a lot of existing programs in that it incorporates….

It’s comprehensive. There’s food literacy education incorporated into that. It embeds local food procurement into that. It embeds community engagement into that. So it’s a comprehensive school food program that is universal and would be at reduced or no cost to the students. That’s where that $50 million number came from. That would be universal for all students across the province.

A lot of non-profits do function on less. I work for a non-profit and worked for Farm to School for many years. There are amazing things that you can do with limited funds, and it’s not sustainable for many non-profits.

L. Doerkson: For sure. I totally agree with that. I guess I just wanted to get a little more clarity around that.

You had mentioned that that $50 million wouldn’t be for the province, of course. That would be for a trial for six different districts.

S. Gambling: You’re right. It would be for a minimum of six pilot projects across the province. That number, actually, is based on 190 school days at $5 per school meal within six school districts across the province, at six public school districts. So considering there are 545,000 students in K-to-12 public schools, a sixth of that is roughly $50 million.

L. Doerkson: I’m grateful for the presentation. Thanks.

[5:35 p.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Yes. On that note, Sam, I’d like to thank you, on behalf of the committee, for taking the time and sharing your enthusiasm with us and your knowledge and vision of what makes so much sense. I certainly know that there are people in my community, in Burnaby, that also want to see something like this. You’ve given us some very concrete, clear paths towards it. Thank you so much.

S. Gambling: Thank you. I’m off to Terrace tomorrow to go visit some school food programs there, so I’ll post on our social media, and you can follow and see what we’re doing up in Terrace.

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay. Great. Thank you.

We’re going to take a break until 5:45.

The committee recessed from 5:36 p.m. to 5:49 p.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Stephanie Higginson, B.C. School Trustees Association.

[5:50 p.m.]

B.C. SCHOOL TRUSTEES ASSOCIATION

S. Higginson: Uy’skweyul. Au si:em s’ulxwe:n, si:em siyeyu; si:em mustimuxw. Uy’ kwunus i lumnala. E:nthe pe Stephanie Higginson, Snuneymuxw. Hay ce:p qa kwuns ulup skaqip tu Snuneymuxw tumuxw a nu kweyul.

I’ve just provided you with a traditional Hul’qumi’num’ greeting, which is the languages of the lands that we are convened upon today.

My name is Stephanie Higginson. I’m the president of the B.C. School Trustees Association. We represent every board of education across the province. Member boards are local governors of every school district in British Columbia, representing over 550,000 students and a combined budget of close to $6 billion. I am grateful to be here today to outline some of the financial challenges faced by B.C.’s boards of education and to emphasize the need for us to work together to meet the challenging and complex needs of the students we collectively serve.

I’m going to begin my presentation by addressing the impacts that COVID-19 has had and continues to have on boards of education. In the ’20-21 school year, boards of education received a total of $288 million in grants to tackle COVID-related costs in their local school communities. For the 2021-22 school year, we have received $43.6 million in grants. We understand the amount was allocated when we thought we would be further along in the pandemic, but here we are, still firmly situated in COVID response.

COVID-related costs are not diminished this year. We do not want to see educational programs downgraded or jeopardized because district funding has to be redirected to address pandemic mitigation measures.

Another area of critical need for school districts is that of capital funding. To solve this problem, it is essential that we come to a common understanding regarding school district surplus funds and why it is critical that unfunded capital costs, as discussed in recommendations 18, 20 and 22 of the 2018 report of the funding model review panel, be acknowledged, understood and fully funded.

As noted in the panel report, districts across the province stated that provincially funded capital programs are not keeping pace with current need. There are numerous capital items that school districts are not funded for. These include IT infrastructure, portable classroom purchases and retrofits, classroom furniture, and the list continues to go on. There is currently no funding mechanism from the province to boards of education for these items.

We consistently hear provincial government mischaracterize school district surpluses as cash on hand when in fact that money is what boards use to cover these critical unfunded capital needs. It is imperative that we work together on this issue so boards of education can reliably meet the increased capital costs of delivering educational programming in this rapidly changing world.

Funding for capital construction projects for new school buildings as well as the proper upkeep of existing buildings is of key importance to us both. We’ve included numerous BCSTA research papers on this topic in our submission handed to you electronically.

The issue is not about just building more schools. It’s also about ensuring that every school in this province is adequately maintained to ensure it’s maximum lifespan. While the province is making considerable investment in new schools, the funding is not adequate to meet the capital construction needs faced by districts across the province. Students in British Columbia deserve to be educated in modern, clean, carbon-neutral buildings.

Throughout my presentation, I have commented repeatedly on the changing and complex needs faced by school districts. This extends to our ability to meet the changing mental health challenges today’s students are facing. It increasingly feels like schools are being used as substitutes for inadequate provincial programming to support complex mental health needs faced by students. This gap in service was recognized in the 2017 Pathway to Hope plan that called for integrated youth mental health care teams to be embedded in schools. Over four years later, we are still waiting for these teams to be rolled out in a consistent manner.

Instead of being focused on delivering educational programming, time in school for these students and staff is often spent triaging student needs, because these students and their families are unable to access these critical supports outside of schools.

In closing, there are more areas of concern that I could have discussed in this presentation. They include but are not limited to how we fund students with diverse learning needs, enacting recommendations from the TRC and aligning practices with the province’s commitment to UNDRIP, using existing staff time to implement the provincial child care mandate, unequal access to school meals, anti-racism training and supports, meeting CleanBC standards and moving collective agreements into the 21st century.

[5:55 p.m.]

Our association recognizes the challenges you will face in making recommendations to address a huge range of needs and desires within a limited provincial budget. Thank you for taking the time today to consider BCSTA’s input into the process.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Stephanie.

M. Dykeman: Thank you for your presentation and for all of the hard work that you and your organization do. I know you’ve been the voice of BCSTA for a long time and a very powerful one. I really appreciate everything you put into it.

I’m curious. I didn’t see a written submission. I’m just wondering if you’re going to be putting one in this year.

S. Higginson: We did put one in just this morning. Apologies. I actually misunderstood and did bring you nine copies of a written one, and it was submitted electronically this morning. So apologies for the misunderstanding of the COVID rules.

M. Dykeman: No need to apologize. Just thank you for putting one in. Appreciate it.

L. Doerkson: Thank you very much for the presentation. We’ve certainly heard a lot of this throughout the province.

I just wanted to touch on the portable issue, because we heard that earlier. Is it standard practice to have these portables coming out of operating funds?

S. Higginson: Yes. There are no external funding mechanisms for portables, so school districts need to save money to purchase them. The way we save money is by having leftover money at the end of the year in unspent operational dollars that we then use to buy capital items that are not funded. Portables are one of those capital items. There is no funding mechanism for portables.

L. Doerkson: Are they consistently…? I think we heard yesterday…. Maybe somebody can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think we heard that they are around $300,000 or so?

S. Higginson: Yes.

L. Doerkson: And many districts seem to be purchasing five or six or seven a year.

S. Higginson: In growing districts, that’s not unusual. Some districts and my own district, we’ve embarked on a retrofitting program, as well, to try to turn it into an educational program, where our tech students are refitting them — taking old ones and retrofitting them. It’s almost a similar cost as a new one, but it just provides an educational program and allows us to work with our CUPE workers on it. It’s expensive.

J. Brar: Thank you, Stephanie, for your presentation. This is, of course, a very important topic, the school funding, particularly about the capital and operating funding we’re talking about here. During the last few years, I know that you have got significant lift when it comes to capital and operating funding in the school system. But I know more is needed to do more.

Particularly, we’re talking about building new schools. If you go back a few years, there was a kind of trend, people moving from small towns to the Lower Mainland. But now, I think, probably because of the housing costs, people are now moving back to small towns. So maybe we need to build more schools in the rural areas moving forward.

Keeping in mind we have a limited budget, where do you draw the line? How much more capital and operating funding do schools need?

S. Higginson: Well, I think that’s a really tricky question. It’s actually one, I think, for the province to answer.

I think our job is to come and make you really aware of the fact that we have a number of buildings across the province that…. It’s not just about new builds. We have a building here that’s about to have its 70th anniversary. When the students take showers in the basement after gym glass, the tiles fall off the wall — some of them onto their heads — and cut them. It’s 70 years old, the building, and was recognized in 2008 as need for replacement, and we’re still waiting.

We recognize, as I said, that there is not an unlimited amount of funds, but finding creative ways to fund these projects is really necessary for students, especially as we are in a learning transformation and the buildings that students are being educated in don’t keep up with the learning and the pedagogy that they’re learning under.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): The only comment I’d make, Stephanie, was I thought that that was excellent, to the point and exactly what needs to be said. Now the real problem is: what’s the solution? We’ve got to find that going forward.

S. Higginson: We are happy to work on a solution together in a really focused advisory group, a working group. That’s something that trustees would work on, together, to come up with a plan that is timed and looks at provincial budget and helps solve the problem together.

[6:00 p.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): With that, Stephanie, I’ll thank you on behalf of the committee. I understand you have another important meeting that you need to go to.

S. Higginson: Off to my board meeting.

J. Routledge (Chair): Oh, well, then. Okay. A great presentation. You’ve given us a lot to work with.

S. Higginson: Thanks, everyone, for your time.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Shannon Aldinger, Comox Valley Families for Public Education.

Shannon, you have five minutes. We’ll signal you when you have 30 seconds left so that you can move into the wrap-up phase and then five minutes for questions.

COMOX VALLEY FAMILIES
FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION

S. Aldinger: Thank you very much.

I’d like to begin by acknowledging that we’re on the traditional and unceded territory of the Coast Salish people, the traditional territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation.

I also want to thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I’m here on behalf of the Comox Valley Families for Public Education. I’m here specifically to request funding for the development and implementation of manda­tory consent education for all B.C. students from kindergarten to grade 12. By consent education, I mean education about what it means to give consent in the context of a dating relationship and the absence of which results in sexual assault. I’m also here to ask for education to promote one’s duty as a witness or a bystander to sexual violence among our students.

This will require sufficient funding to develop the necessary curriculum for all grades in an age-appropriate way with the assistance of qualified sexual health educators, as well as to train teachers throughout the province to teach this important subject.

Surprisingly, despite having been recently redesigned, the B.C. curriculum still has two significant deficits in relation to sexual health education. The first is that there’s no mandatory sexual health education curriculum regarding consent or otherwise for students in grades 11 and 12. The sexual health curriculum is taught through the PE curriculum. Mandatory PE actually ends in grade 10.

This is both surprising and illogical, given the findings of the McCreary Centre Society’s recent adolescent health survey that indicates that the vast majority of our students have not even engaged in sexual activity. They’re not sexually active by grade 10.

For anyone unfamiliar with it, this is the McCreary Centre Society’s adolescent health survey. It’s described as the most reliable, comprehensive survey of youth aged 12 to 19 in B.C. In 2018, over 38,000 of our students answered the survey from 58 of our 60 school districts, so it is indeed comprehensive.

This means that the majority of our students in B.C. are becoming sexually active at a time after they’ve ceased receiving any formal education — sexual health education, that is.

The second big deficit is that there are no mandatory lessons about consent. The curriculum itself doesn’t even include the word “consent” — not for any grade. These are significant deficits given what we know about the ongoing, alarming rates of sexual violence, rates that I note have not changed in the 30 years since I graduated from high school and started university.

The most recent Stats Canada report reports that one in three women and girls and one in six boys and men are sexually assaulted in their lifetime, with girls between the ages of 14 to 24 being the most vulnerable and girls between 15 to 17 reporting the highest rates of assault. These are times, of course, when they are in our high schools.

Youth who are Indigenous, LGBTQ or have a disability experience even higher rates. Disturbingly, this most recent McCreary adolescent health survey had, as one of its key findings, that there were no improvements in experiences of sexual violence, that rates of sexual abuse, dating violence and sexual harassment had, in fact, increased in the last five years.

We know that education is prevention. Studies from all over the world consistently show that children who are educated about healthy bodies, including the use of scientific names for body parts in their early childhood, are better protected from abuse and exploitation.

By extension, mandatory consent education for every grade should reduce incidents of sexual assault and exploitation. Parents of both sons and daughters should be equally supportive of mandatory consent education as the consequences can have devastating impacts, both for the victims and the perpetrators.

[6:05 p.m.]

Sexual violence also, of course, takes a financial toll. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives attempted, in 2013, to quantify the economic costs due to sexual assault and intimate-partner violence, from the costs to the health care system in terms of mental health care, physical health care, to social assistance benefits and the criminal justice system. It estimated the cost to be approximately $9 billion per year.

Of course, it’s also a human rights issue. The United Nations and many international human rights mechanisms also recognize that freedom from sexual violence is a necessary component of sexual equality and that comprehensive sexual health education including consent education is a fundamental human right.

To conclude, five years ago our provincial government recognized sexual violence at the post-secondary level as a problem that warranted bold action. That year it legislated reporting protocols for sexual violence and misconduct at all post-secondary educational institutions in British Columbia and in 2019 provided further funding to support those improvements.

I’m here to say that similarly bold action is needed to combat sexual violence among all B.C. students well before they go to college or university and also to capture those students who don’t go on to post-secondary education.

M. Dykeman: Thank you for your presentation. I had no idea that we didn’t have consent in the curriculum, so it was very interesting.

I’ve had an opportunity to read through your written submission that you put in. I’m just curious. One of the statistics that stood out to me was related to McCreary’s report, which I’m familiar with. I remember we received a lot of information, on school board, about that. But with the 2008 finding that there had been an increase — I haven’t read that report — did they dig deeper to see if there was any connection to more comfort in revealing those types of incidents? Or if it straight was that there’s just been an increase despite efforts? Did they dig any deeper in those findings?

S. Aldinger: Not that I’m familiar with. That is stated as simply a key finding — and then some research to support it. I’m often faced with that kind of question: whether the increase in reports, particularly post-2017 with the Me Too movement, indicates, in fact, that we just have a greater familiarity with what constitutes sexual assault and a greater comfort level with reporting, and that may well be the case.

The flip side to that, of course, is then that rates, at least recently — possibly for the last 30 years — have in fact been higher than one in three for girls and women and one in six for boys and men. Either way you look at it, it’s a big problem that continues to need to be addressed.

M. Dykeman: Absolutely. Just to follow up — absolutely, either way it’s terribly disturbing. And not to diminish the importance of that statistic, I was just curious, because it was such a shock. If they had said: “Well, we need to dig deeper….” It is a concerning statistic no matter what the outcome is. So thank you for bringing that up in the report and for the rest of your report.

S. Aldinger: It’s also interesting. The report — there were quite a number of comments within it about our youth specifically asking for greater sexual health education.

I mean, as important as it is for every parent to recognize that it is first and foremost their responsibility to teach their children right from wrong and sexual ethics, the fact is that not all parents have that connection with their kids at a young age — never mind during their teenage years — and that children need to have that lesson brought home to them through the public education system as well.

The other thing, of course, to bear in mind is that our public education system is meant to be the great equalizer. It’s meant to address the fact that different parents have different levels of skills and comforts in terms of what they’re able to teach and instil in their children as they’re being raised.

J. Routledge (Chair): Any other questions for Shannon?

Well, with that, on behalf of the committee, I want to thank you very much for coming and presenting to us. Your presentation is very clear, very powerful. I think that lack of questions doesn’t mean that you haven’t affected us. I think we’re all thinking about the implications of what you’re telling us.

One of the things I noted down for myself is: what about those students who don’t go on to post-secondary education where they will learn that no means no?

[6:10 p.m.]

S. Aldinger: Precisely. There’s a lot of media coverage about consent education at the university and college level. But we’re doing a disservice to our kids if we’re not teaching them well before that.

J. Routledge (Chair): Absolutely.

Our next presenter is David Mills, with Dogwood.

David, you have five minutes. We’ll signal you when you have 30 seconds left so that you can transition into wrap-up comments, and then we’ll open it up for questions.

DOGWOOD

D. Mills: I’m pleased to be on Coast Salish territories today to give feedback from Dogwood to the committee from thousands of our supporters across B.C. who are looking to see us move aggressively towards an emissions-free future.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to present to the standing committee today. I apologize for not having a submission in ahead of time. I’ll do that electronically this evening.

Dogwood supports input into this committee that was previously delivered by Stand at 3:15 on Friday, September 3. They delivered a report called the subsidizing climate change report, which characterized the amount of direct and indirect assistance provided by B.C. to maintain and, in some cases, expand fossil fuel extraction processes. That amount was pegged at $1.3 billion annually, the largest component of which being the deep-well royalty program.

We back the assessment by Stand that in terms of financial commitments to emissions reductions, B.C.’s budgets are stimulating a net increase, not decrease, in emissions. This appears to be borne out each time B.C. releases new emissions figures. Aside from a new piece of legislation, the budget is the most significant statement of the government’s intentions, and this government appears to be signalling it doesn’t think that climate change is our problem.

I’d like to draw your attention to where B.C. sits in the global context in terms of its emissions. We’re not a clean jurisdiction. We’re certainly not leaders. We’re emitting 13.58 tonnes per person, per year in British Columbia. The world average — the average of other, colder countries like Sweden — is six.

There’s only one way to define leadership on this problem, and that’s if your emissions are falling. Ours are rising, and those are just the ones we count. Our forests, which we manage, have gone from being net sinks of carbon to a net source, now producing, on average, eight tonnes per person, per year. Added together, the average British Columbian is responsible for 21.58 tonnes. That’s the same amount — actually, a little bit higher — than the average person in Saudi Arabia.

Our budgets need to send a signal — one that states unequivocally that it is no longer okay for us to keep making the problem worse. That starts by immediately ending all subsidies for oil and gas.

What are some solutions? Dogwood’s new campaign to move beyond gas is aimed at the largest source of emissions: the expansion of fracking and the production of fracked gas. However, we’re also applauding the expansion of zero-emission rebates that have come about as of late. If we are to move beyond gas, households need all-electric options for heat and transportation. By redirecting resources towards those two areas, particularly heating retrofits, it lowers emissions, reduces upstream demand, increases resilience in the face of heatwaves and spurs innovation. Our budgets need to ensure society has the revenue it needs to lower emissions and stop making the problem worse.

Our budgets also need to encourage dramatic increases in electrical production. Yesterday’s announcement by the Premier to advance low-carbon electrification is a good start. It comes with a worrying acknowledgment, and that acknowledgment was that 70 percent of the energy we use comes from fossil fuels.

To reduce fossil fuel use, we can use levies creatively to raise revenue and shift behaviour. For example, we could reinstate the PST for heating gas sales and provide rebates to low-income families to protect them. We could charge levies on large engines and any new vehicles sold in B.C. — for example, any vehicle with an engine larger than 1.6 litres — until such time as we have ample electric production. We could add progressive levies and, again, offer rebates to low-income families.

[6:15 p.m.]

However, we also need to replace that energy. Peer-reviewed research out of UVic suggests our supply of electricity will need to at least double. We need to reinstate the standing offer program and plan to purchase more electricity. Many First Nations communities have power projects waiting in the wings. We need to budget for the purchasing of roof-top solar. Almost all of southern B.C. is solar-friendly, and here in southern Vancouver Island, we only produce 20 percent of the electricity we consume.

I’ll conclude by saying that if budgets tax the behaviours we want to see changed and encourage the behaviours that generate home-grown, clean power, we can easily replace the energy we use that comes from oil and gas. That simple switch changes our emissions picture and provides revenue for resiliency. Our next budget could change this trajectory.

Thank you so much for your time.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, David.

Our first question is from Greg.

G. Kyllo: Hi, David. Thank you very much for your presentation.

With respect to the amount of tonnage of CO₂ emissions related to forest fires, are you guys able to accurately determine what the actual amount is — say, for this past wildfire season?

D. Mills: Not precisely at the moment, but it is reported in our emissions tables that are released. It’s just not counted towards our particular climate targets.

G. Kyllo: And what percentage of, for example…? I know you don’t have the exact data. But this season’s wildfire — would the emissions equate to 100 percent of what B.C.’s emissions would be otherwise? What’s the magnitude?

D. Mills: It doesn’t appear to be quite that much, but it’s, say, on the order of 65 percent or 70 percent of our annual emissions.

G. Kyllo: Wow. And I guess, with the work of Dogwood, do you feel that there needs to be more efforts within B.C. Wildfire Service to actually contain fires? It used to be, years ago, that we’d identify a fire. We’d put crews on it until it was out. Then we’d move on. They seem to have taken an approach in recent years where they’re just letting stuff kind of go and burn, only focusing on protecting, obviously, individuals and infrastructure.

D. Mills: I think, not being a fire expert myself, we’re at the point where we’re recognizing that these super-hot, super-destructive fires cause much more long-term, permanent damage than the proactive approach used by many First Nations. I think the Tŝilhqot’in has provided a great example of proactive burning done in the spring to reduce fuel load and also stimulate vegetation for animal browse and grazing.

Yeah. A proactive approach certainly would be an area of climate change mitigation and emissions mitigation that would be hugely important. Maybe an unacknowledged source of emissions are fires. They’re much higher than they used to be.

G. Kyllo: Great. Thank you very much.

D. Mills: Thank you for the question.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, David. I think everybody in this room always wants more, and we expect more, and we want it faster. In fact, in this day and age, I think we want it yesterday.

My question is around…. I like the theory that you want to change people’s behaviour, but there are areas of this province where you cannot change the behaviour, because there’s no access to certain things that are there because they’re so remotely located in the province. So when you’re talking in the terms that you’re there…. I mean, you talk about low-income families and other people that are there. Do you have a plan for those remote areas of the province?

D. Mills: Well, I think the changes…. As you say, we needed to start yesterday. But if I was prioritizing where I’d start the process of electrification and start, for example, demanding zero-emission-vehicle mandates and a greater degree of electrification and electrical retrofits in households, you know, I wouldn’t start in the Peace. I’d start down here, where the climate is more amenable.

[6:20 p.m.]

I get that there’s a little bit of misinformation out there around heat pumps and how far north they’re actually effective, but the fact is that the bulk of our emissions that people create comes from the south, where our population centres are heavily located. And in those environments, we have the most vehicles on the road. We’ve got the most gas furnaces burning gas. It’s the geographic location that’s most amenable to making these particular changes, so yeah, I would start in the south and then move north. Let the technology catch up.

M. Starchuk: Okay. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Any other questions?

J. Brar: Thank you for coming today.

I’ve had numerous discussions with the Minister of Environment on this one. You indicated other jurisdictions. We have a CleanBC policy in B.C. I would like to know from you if there’s any other jurisdiction in North America that has a better policy than us. What is missing here, and what do they have better in their policy?

D. Mills: Yeah. Absolutely. The city of Vancouver right here has a much better policy than CleanBC. They’re preventing the new installation of gas-burning appliances in all new homes. That’s a policy the government could easily replicate.

Any new buildings, starting next year, could go into…. It doesn’t even need to go into the building code. You could just simply state there’s no need for more gas burning, gas heating in any new building. That’s also replicated in a number of Californian jurisdictions that have done the same.

In terms of emissions per capita, there also are many jurisdictions in Canada with lower emissions per capita, like Quebec. Quebec is also developing and exporting more clean power, more battery technology. It’s generating more homegrown electrification resources that stimulate the economy.

CleanBC is a great name, but until the emissions start falling, it’s just a name.

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay. Well, on that note, David, we’re out of time. We’ll wrap it up. On behalf of the committee, I want to thank you for taking the time to make your presentation and for pushing us on this issue.

We’re towards the end of a series of quite a few presen­tations. We want you to know that you are not the first one to talk to us about the seriousness of the situation and to challenge what we’ve done already and what we could be doing. We’ve heard from a lot of organizations and individuals that have shared innovations with us and innova­tive ideas.

You’re quite right. A budget is a signal. We don’t get to create the budget, but we do get to make strong recommendations about what should be in the budget. Thank you for helping us with that.

D. Mills: Thank you for doing this important work to give us all the opportunity to participate.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Liza Schmalcel.

LIZA SCHMALCEL

L. Schmalcel: I’m here to ask the budget committee to recommend giving more funds to create the appropriate number of long-term-care beds, thereby reducing pressures on hospitals, where many seniors are currently housed.

For several decades, all governments, all parties, have been housing seniors needing long-term care — residents — in hospitals designed and structured for acute care, thereby reducing the number of available acute care beds. The result is a poor standard of acute and long-term care, a burnt-out workforce, a loss of dignity and a needless loss of life.

I requested data from all health authorities via freedom of information. Only Island Health provided the data I was asking for — namely, acute and alternate level of care occupancy rates.

[6:25 p.m.]

In 2019, before COVID, in my community, the Comox hospital was an astounding 34 percent alternate level of care. Campbell River was 27 percent, with the Comox hospital total occupancy rate being 116 percent, and Campbell River, a 113 percent yearly average. These hospitals are very new and opened their doors in October of 2017. Data I requested revealed they were over 100 percent capacity almost immediately.

Before the North Island hospital construction began, Island Health promised the Strathcona regional hospital district board they would build an appropriate number of long-term-care beds, before the project began in 2005. In Campbell River, Island Health publicly acknowledged, two years ago, the need for more long-term-care beds at the September 2019 hospital district board meeting, 14 years after the initial promise. They said it would take three years to build a long-term-care facility. This was two years ago. As far as I know, nothing is happening.

In B.C., it is by design that the public is unaware of how and why our hospitals and ERs are overcrowded. When a hospital has high occupancy rates, the damage shows up in the overcrowded ERs. Acute care patients are routinely treated in hallways, closets and lounge areas. When the media ask questions, the health authorities deflect and blame flu surges, not the actual fact that they are inappropriately housing the elderly in hospitals.

Since the 1940s, all provincial governments and all parties have thrown money at the problem by promising to, rather, fund home care instead of building enough care beds. Politicians are unaware that public home care cannot provide taking vitals and IV treatments. Because governments neglected to build enough long-term-care beds, we find ourselves in a precarious position now, with a global pandemic overwhelming our already overwhelmed hospitals, and we have our surgeries cancelled.

What I’m asking for is the committee to provide a sufficient budget to survey, plan and build appropriate long-term-care beds, starting with communities with the most overcrowded hospitals first. Either that or expand hospitals to include long-term-care units.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Liza.

Does anyone have any questions for Liza?

L. Schmalcel: That’s rather disappointing. How can you just be silent?

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay, give them a minute.

M. Dykeman: My silence wasn’t from a lack of caring. It was from the fact that your presentation was so clear. I was able to understand what you were saying. It was because of that.

Thank you for your presentation.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Liza, for your presentation.

You made a comment about home care and the staff unable to provide certain services to those people. Maybe you could elaborate on where you get those numbers from.

L. Schmalcel: It’s from the research I’ve done.

My mother needed antibiotic treatments. She had to be admitted into the hospital to get four-times-a-day antibiotic treatments. If you get two times a day, you can usually go into an out-patient program. If it’s more than two, you have to be admitted into the hospital. She was in relatively good shape and everything, and she was admitted into the hospital, occupying a bed, because public home care can’t deliver IV antibiotic treatments.

They can’t even take vitals. They can’t even take your blood pressure, your heart rate, things like that. For private, you can, but it’s very expensive.

J. Brar: Liza, the issue you’re raising is very important. I just wanted you to know that. We understand that.

[6:30 p.m.]

Particularly with the seniors in acute care occupancy, this has issue has been…. I’ve been elected for a long time, but I have always heard this, and it’s a very important issue, moving forward, and particularly after COVID-19. We now know how we need to move forward on long-term-care facilities, because they’re the most vulnerable people in that situation.

I just want to say thank you to you for coming today and making this presentation to us. I don’t have any questions for you. I just wanted to say that this is a very important issue you are raising.

L. Schmalcel: If I may add, for the previous question, Island Health is doing a program called Hospital at Home. You can maybe contact them and ask them how that program is going. It was a pilot program a few months ago. They were, essentially, creating beds out of thin air. That’s how they promoted it.

If they’re having success, this would be great for all the other health authorities to supply too, especially [audio interrupted] hospitals in B.C. are in Surrey, Abbotsford, Chilliwack and Campbell River. Those are the most overcrowded, so those areas really need a lot of attention.

H. Sandhu: Thank you, Liza. I really appreciate your passion and presentation.

My silence was that if I…. I can have a long discussion on this topic. I was a little taken aback when you said that home care can’t do IV or don’t do vitals. I am a registered nurse and even worked in home care and hospital — and even in hospital, as a patient care coordinator, where we coordinated a lot of care in home.

Again, I’m not sure which particular case you’re talking about. We don’t just do…. We do vitals. We do complex wound care. We drain lungs, PleurX drain. We do a vast variety, so I was taken aback. We do IV antibiotics in community care.

I think it might be the scheduling issue. When it’s four times, it’s complex because of the scheduling that community nurses have, and care aides certainly cannot do that. So in that case, yes, we have to make decisions to help patients so they’re safer there. That’s the only think I can think of.

You talk about Island Health. With the B.C. Nurses Union, I worked with nurses all around health. I was just thinking. I wonder where that communication or research your feedback… Because I worked….

L. Schmalcel: It could be Island Health doesn’t offer it, but the other ones do.

H. Sandhu: Yeah. That’s why I thought I’d better not say anything.

L. Schmalcel: It would be great if it was uniform all around the province, like everywhere. Why is it little districts are different, when it should be uniform care, universally?

H. Sandhu: Yeah. In my understanding, as I said, working with nurses across the province in my roles within the union, I know that it’s standard, because we often meet and see the schedule. That’s why I was a little…. Then I thought, okay. I don’t want to take too much of the time. I was amazed, when I moved from acute care to community, how much work, as a clinician, community nurses do, from admission to discharge, and how many patients…. Not only IV antibiotics and stuff, but we help them to palliate at home, and we go deliver hydromorph or even supplies.

I was amazed I didn’t have that idea, working in the hospitals, when you said they were not allowed to do vitals. I was a little taken aback. But I really appreciate your passion in this presentation. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Liza, we’re pretty well out of time, but on behalf of the committee, I want to thank you for coming and speaking to us. It’s very clear to all of us that this touches you very personally and that you feel very strongly about it. It’s really important that you took the time to come to this committee and not only share with us your perspective but share with us your feelings about it. You’ve affected us.

We also want to assure you that we have heard from many others about the health care system and about what’s broken in the health care system, what the gaps are in the health care system, and we do want to, in our deliberation, find some solutions and make recommendations to improve it.

L. Schmalcel: Unfortunately, COVID has really brought that all out. It was relatively hidden before.

[6:35 p.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Scott Harrison.

SCOTT HARRISON

S. Harrison: Thank you very much, everyone. It’s really a pleasure to be here. I know you’ve been working hard at this. I think this is your second-to-last day, so thanks for all the hours you’ve put it.

I also want to say it’s really appropriate that the Housing critic is here, because I just want to talk about housing from a smaller community perspective. I’m a councillor in the town of Qualicum Beach, but I’m just showing up here as a citizen more than anything else, as opposed to representing the town.

I also want to wear the hat of…. Last year at Housing Central, which is the largest affordable housing conference in Canada, I was the only elected official who was a panellist in the whole conference. So I’m sort of taking that lens to look at some of the things I’ve seen in smaller communities and some of the concerns I have about how to address some of the challenges in smaller communities.

There are three things that I really wanted to talk about. Firstly, I just want to look at data gaps, as I’d call them, in smaller communities. This would be looking at the methodology of organizations like CHMC.

One of the things that CMHC does is, in a larger community — like, say, Metro Vancouver or Victoria — it will have a primary and secondary market analysis. So both large apartment buildings…. I believe, off the top of my head, the definition of primary is at least five units, one of which is not ground-oriented. It’s five or three. The secondary market is suites — bedroom suites, carriage homes, things like that — which, in smaller communities, will form the majority of rental units.

In my community, it’s roughly 90 percent. When you look at the renter households in the census, at roughly 600, there are only about 60 units that show up in CMHC data. So you have a very small data set relative to the overall population.

The problem with that is that rental construction has not been uniform in British Columbia. When there was federal funding in the 1980s and early 1990s, you saw a lot of primary rental market construction in every community. When that funding was pulled back, you basically have this gap.

You’re tied into the primary rental market having values from…. The property values, construction costs, meeting code and all those other costs are looped into an earlier time with much cheaper costs. When I crunch the numbers, even accounting for how they account for utilities, there’s a roughly 25 percent variance within a three month period in the rental cost from the census and CMHC.

Now why this applies to the province, because CMHC is not your bailiwick, is that B.C. Housing — when you’re looking at some of the rent-geared-to-income data that B.C. Housing uses — uses CMHC data. So it’s drawing on these lower costs to assess both core housing need and how much income you can make as a household before you get costed out of the rent-geared-to-income units.

Some of the solutions that B.C. Housing is doing, which…. They are the best in the country. From housing providers in Ontario and Alberta, repeatedly I’ve heard, informally, that B.C. Housing is the model for the rest of the country. But there are some interesting little gaps there. That has some impacts as well.

The other thing I want to briefly talk about is point-in-time counts. Point-in-time counts are not necessarily a measure of homelessness; they’re a measure of volunteer capacity and integration with the homeless population. I think that’s a really crucial distinction.

What you’re going to find…. For example, in my community, there were no people who were identified as couch surfers, yet in every adjacent community, it’s about 25 to 30 percent of the homeless population. So how the methodology is done at the local level by the groups conducting the point-in-time counts, can have significant impacts on the numbers which are being produced, which could lead to an underreporting of the data.

Now that is flagged by B.C. Housing, as well — that they say that this is just a minimum count. So they know that. But, for example, if you have an organization that doesn’t have connections with the homeless community, you need to provide identifying information in that process. That might be a problem.

The other bottleneck I want to talk to you about, as well, is about non-profit capacity in smaller communities. This is something which can actually be a real issue. My community is in a grouping of about 50,000 people, with suburbanized electoral areas and two municipalities. But if you went to a community like, say, Port McNeil, they’re their own little community and then there’s not much around them.

Now if you’re looking at some of the affordable housing programs through B.C. Housing, it is a prerequisite to have a non-profit operator to operate the facility. So if you don’t have any more volunteer capacity in your community — they’re fully tasked with one building, and they can’t manage any more; they’re burning out — you will automatically, a priori, not be able to apply as a smaller community.

I just want to flag that as something…. The government might want to reach out to the B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association, which does excellent work, and look at how we look at it more on a regional level than a local government level. How, at a regional level, do we build non-profit capacity in more sparsely populated communities? This will ensure that everyone has equal access to funding.

Last thing. Public-private partnerships. Okay. The B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association — Jill Atkey is the person to talk to about this. Most affordable housing is in the private sector right now in B.C.

[6:40 p.m.]

You have to look at the REITs that are buying up all the existing affordable rental stock and transforming them into market stock. If the hole at the bottom of your bucket is bigger than the amount of water you’re putting in, you will not catch up to the amount of affordable housing demand in this province, in both large and small communities. I don’t have great ideas on how to fix that, but I do want to flag that, because that is going to be the crucial defining factor in affordable housing in British Columbia over the next decade.

I had more to say about that. I just want to shut it off there, because I’d go over.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, maybe there can be a question or two from the committee that will give you a chance to expand on that.

S. Harrison: Okay, being respectful of your time as well.

J. Routledge (Chair): Questions for Scott.

M. Starchuk: Thank your for your expedited stop at the end.

You were talking, at the beginning, about how things are measured with regard to…. It’s this many storeys, this many suites, yet we’re not capturing some of those areas. I know that we heard it a couple of days ago, that there are some communities that don’t want a duplex. They don’t want a basement suite. They don’t want a carriage home. It’s difficult to get those housing needs. But when you were talking about it, were you just saying that the data on number of suites is actually deflated, or inflated?

S. Harrison: What I would suggest you look at is the census, which does track the number of renter households. For example, in the 2016 census in my community, the total population is 8,943, and there are 595 renter households. From that, you can derive…. Cross-referencing that with the CMHC data — which is updated quarterly, I believe — you can look at the number of units in CMHC, the number of units in the census and get a rough idea. Even though the census data is almost five years old now, that gives you the rough idea.

As to communities that have a reticence to look at the secondary market, that’s a larger structural problem. I think one of the things that there’s an emerging consensus on is looking at the models from countries like America, Germany. The Cascadia region in America has some very interesting policies. Portland did some very interesting things.

It might be good to look at not invoking provincial paramountcy per se but certainly looking at, I would suggest, the German model, where you start having incentives. You’d have fixed funding which is available if you’re doing things in terms of zoning. If you’re doing things in terms of creating supply, you’d get a benefit as a munici­pality. This is how Germany actually does that at the federal level. In turn, that creates an incentive for communi­ties to not pander to every concern of every neighbour on every development. In local government, I see that a lot. With the oldest community in Canada — our median age is 66 — I see that a lot.

Hopefully, that answers your question.

M. Starchuk: It does. If I could just add, there are…. I was part of local government for a while as well, so I understand the whole zoning thing, but I also take a look at housing and the housing market that we have today. The fact of the matter is, depending on where you live in the province of B.C., you may have to have that mortgage helper or a mortgage helper or two. Then there’s the other part of it, where there are multigenerational families living in one home.

S. Harrison: Absolutely. I would highlight the multigenerational aspect as a huge problem. What you’re going to see, as well, in British Columbia is this outflow of equity from Vancouver. The two largest demographics in the last census were 50 to 55 and 55 to 60 respectively, roughly one in seven Canadians. When you talk about the passing on of the boomer generation, the ides have come but have not yet passed.

You’re going to see this outflow from Vancouver into retirement communities across B.C. My community is one of them, but also to the Okanagan region as well. That will distort local markets. As all that equity flows into the community, they can buy above asking and will squeeze out a lot of the working families from the housing which otherwise would have been allocated to them in that market. It’s going to be an emerging problem over the next decade or two.

J. Brar: Thank you, Scott. You started your presentation about housing in the smaller communities. Housing, of course, we all agree, is a huge issue right now, a number one issue in the province and probably in the country.

Two solutions are usually offered to deal with the situation. One is to build more public housing. The second one is regulations, whether it’s mortgage stress tests or many other solutions — banning foreign buyers and all that. What is different, I would like to understand, when it comes to smaller communities, that can be done?

S. Harrison: I think one of the things you’re going to find is that in terms of different regulations that you could have specifically for smaller communities, it would be looking at what the barriers are to creating supply and what sort of supply is being created. That’s a little bit of a circular thing.

[6:45 p.m.]

You do have to actually build in smaller communities. You do have to build something. The question is: what do you build? What you’d want to look at is probably something through the Ministry of Housing where you’re looking at best practices. B.C. Housing has some excellent documents on how to reduce costs.

I think another question would be…. I’m thinking of my demographics in my community, where 23 percent of the population is over 75. In a population of 9,000, there are roughly 1,000 widows and widowers. You have a lot of seniors who are on their own; relative to the population, a lot of older seniors. So things like that.

How do you create multigenerational housing when you’re working with the private sector and you can’t take advantage of height, like you can in a big city? We can’t build affordable housing by slapping another storey on an 11-storey building. That doesn’t work in small communi­ties. They will lynch you if you try to build a 12-storey building in your downtown. Pardon the language. You would be voted out of office in the next election, even with the best of intentions.

I think it would just be providing good information, providing good data, looking at best practices, looking at examples that work and trying to share the information. As far as a stick, I’m not sure if that would work very well. I think you’re going to find a lot of reticence to radically changing how development is done, in terms of process. I think it will create a lot of push-back from a lot of the electorate.

I would also highlight that the changes that were recommended in the B.C.-federal housing affordability study…. Two were immediately dismissed, which were looking at homeowners’ grants…. I think there was a second policy proposal which Minister Robinson got rid of quite quickly. So beyond sharing good information, I don’t have a strict, regulatory answer that the province could introduce.

The problem, also, too: when is a pile not a pile? Where do you divide between smaller and medium-sized communities? What’s the population threshold? Is it density? Is it total population? Is it demographics? I think you run into real issues of where you draw the dividing line.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): Scott, you raised a ton of questions here.

I think the data sets are always lagging — that happens, right? — and point-in-time counts. I think one of the things is that the supply being absorbed by rates and things like that is clearly a concern. They’re not the only ones. We’ve seen other groups that are now picking up property for Airbnbs or other things like that. They’re taking market housing out of the market. It’s no wonder that there’s a shortage.

I do like the suggestion about incentives, like you were talking about in Germany. I don’t know exactly what they are, but I think there is going to be a big challenge between the province…. Like you said, paramountcy is not going to be the answer. It’s going to have to be something like incentives that drive it, and looking at areas where we can create the opportunities, where there are willing councils and willing people to look at a redevelopment.

I use an example like on Cambie down in Vancouver. When the Canada Line went in, they rezoned an area. It was very clear what could go in there and what couldn’t go in there. The fact is, it wasn’t one of these things where you had to keep going back and okaying every property or whatever. Everybody knew what the rules were.

Anyway, I’d love to connect afterwards. Maybe you want to submit something before five o’clock tomorrow night. That’s our deadline.

S. Harrison: Okay. Actually, the idea that did come to my mind is an informal conversation I’ve had with our CAO — to the earlier question about what we should do in terms of regulation. It’s looking at OCP reviews and then pre-zoning things to have increased density baked into your OCP review process.

When you wanted to, say, move from one single-family home in an area which has been designated in your OCP for more density, and there’s a minimum threshold of, let’s say, four units on that property that would work, then it doesn’t trigger all the public hearing requirements. It’s automatically approved in your OCP: “We want density here. This is the right location for it. We’ve agreed with it as a town.” Then that speeds up the process for some of that infill development which I think will be key to actually meeting some of the needs in a timely fashion.

The only other thing I would add, just as I head out the door…. To give you an idea of the scope of the problem, if Justin Trudeau showed up in YVR tomorrow to announce $2 billion of funding for affordable housing, that repre­sents 0.1 percent of the B.C. market, rounding up. It’s a big problem.

[6:50 p.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Scott, we are way over time, and all that does is underscore how what you’ve had to share with us is so much more than can be captured in ten minutes.

Thank you so much for your expertise in this, and for sharing. I mean, you’ve really engaged the committee. You’ve got lots of great ideas, and we appreciate it. There’s a bigger discussion that needs to happen. Thank you for being part of it.

Our next and final presenter is Mayor Aaron Stone, Island Coastal Economic Trust.

Mayor, you have five minutes. We will signal you when you have 30 seconds left so that you can sort of move into wrap-up mode. Then we’ll ask you questions.

ISLAND COASTAL ECONOMIC TRUST

A. Stone: Madam Chair and committee members, I am Aaron Stone — as you just heard, mayor of Ladysmith and chair of the Island Coastal Economic Trust. Today I just want to talk to you about the trust and some opportuni­ties for the trust to continue to offer value to the province and to the 500,000-plus citizens of British Columbia that we serve.

The trust was created in 2006 by legislation by the province of B.C. — $50 million in capitalization to support economic diversification in the Island and coastal region. In 2018, we received $10 million to support continuing our work for the next four to five years. In 2020-2021, the region’s geographic boundaries were expanded to include new areas.

In the past 15 years, $55 million has been invested and committed to regional economic diversification, resulting not only in thousands of construction-phase and new long-term jobs but also lasting change and economic diversification in our communities.

If you’ve travelled through our region and you’ve been to the Ucluelet Aquarium, the Wild Pacific Trail, the Sunshine Coast Trail, the Elk Falls Suspension Bridge or the Nanaimo Airport, these are examples of how our work over the last 15 years has created a resilient, asset-based tourism economy.

We’re also working hard in rural and remote communities to ensure that tourism benefits are dispensed to all. The recent Toquaht Secret Beach marina development, the Ditidaht tourism infrastructure improvements at Nitinaht Lake, the Huu-ay-aht Anacla-to-Bamfield Trail, the ’Na̱mǥis walkway and the walkways in Alert Bay, and other Indigenous and rural and remote developments are the foundation for new Indigenous tourism hubs, business and employment opportunities for remote communities.

We’ve also been supporting key sectors of our economy such as shellfish aquaculture. Projects like the Fanny Bay harbour productivity improvements have been a game-changer for the Baynes Sound aquaculture industry, supporting its large number of smaller producers. We’re also firmly focused on the future and innovation, with initiatives such as the Port Alberni food hub, supporting aquaculture and agriculture business development and, in particular, the emergent seaweed industry or, most recently, the improved Gabriola textile hub, supporting circular economy principles for the textile business sector.

On strengths and values for the region, the greatest strength is our direct connection to communities and our patient and flexible capacity to be there for funding when they need us. It’s not a level playing field to access funding, especially for under-resourced rural and remote communities. We provide long-term stability and predictability, with programs that are available long term; integrated life-cycle support systems for communities and organizations as they move through from concept to implementation; patient capital, which can weather challenges and delays faced by under-resourced rural and remote communities and the greater challenges of implementation or construction.

Subject to the ups and downs of economic and political cycles, this is especially critical for small and rural communities, whose needs and capacities do not always align with economic priorities or cycles. We can pivot quickly when needed. Our region piloted the tourism resiliency program and digital economy response programs. Within ten days of the pandemic shutdowns, programs were quickly scaled provincially.

Innovative. Other programs, provincially, include the B.C. social procurement initiative, which began in our region, and the fish and seafood traceability system, originally developed by local fisherpeople to address global demand for traceability, which was a challenge for small, local producers. We have tight-knit relationships and deep knowledge of regional capacity, which enables us to be more innovative with less risk.

We do have a vision for the future. Indigenous communities would be formally included in our governance model so that we can truly be a regional organization and meet DRIPA principles. We have a long-term, sustainable financial runway to support a generational vision for economic diversification, adaptation and change, socioeconomic innovation, wellness and quality of life for continued community development.

[6:55 p.m.]

We would also bolster community resiliency by inte­grating adaptation to climate change and other global and local risks to economic diversification and growth initia­tives; a long-term approach to strengthening community resiliency and capacity by meeting folks where they are; and long-term programming and patient capital investments on key initiatives.

Quickly, some facts. I haven’t seen 30 seconds yet; there it is. Over 5,000 jobs created — 2,750 long-term jobs, 2,600 construction jobs. A $55 million total cost to government over 15 years. Total funding leveraged into the region of over $300 million. Annual financial funding contributions — $1.5 million to $2.2 million, comparative to other trusts in the province of $70 million to $80 million, or $10 million to $20 million per year. Funding in communities under 5,000 — 38 since its inception and more than 50 percent this year.

In the end, why am I here today to ask the committee to consider long-term, sustainable funding for ICE-T in the order of $100 million? That would give us a perpetual runway to continue this work and to continue to build on the success we’ve had over the last 15 years.

M. Dykeman: Thank you for your presentation. I notice that you don’t have a written presentation submitted, or at least it’s not yet on my computer. I’m wondering if you’ll be putting one in that might cover a little bit of that. That’s a substantial ask. I was wondering if you could maybe verbally provide a little bit of an idea of how you would see this working into the future and, then, if you will be putting in anything in writing.

A. Stone: We will put something in, in writing. I can follow up on that after this meeting. When I saw the time was low, I thought I’d go for the big ask at the end.

There are options. We’ve worked with the province through the pandemic to deliver innovative programs for the region and across the province, for the province. There are innovative ways that the trust could be used in a productive manner, going forward. But when we’re talking about different financial models that we reviewed as a board over the last few years, it was recognized that the other trusts received significantly increased capital over what we had in the initial phases.

In the initial legislation, there were the three trusts created. The two other trusts had different models. It was almost like looking at different opportunities in models. Our model was a granting model that has been, arguably, the most successful out of the three trusts in driving economic diversification and success. We recognize that, if we take the model that we’ve used and what we’ve learned over the last 15 years and applied a larger funding model of $100 million, through the investments we’ve made as a trust and the disbursements that we’ve made over the last 15 years, we could be perpetually viable for the province to continue to deliver economic development throughout the Island and coastal region.

We’re talking about the 500,000 people — not the trust, but the people that we all serve, collectively, together. That was why I said $100 million. If we were looking at $50 million, we’d look at another 15 to 20 years of runway. But we do believe that if you look at the success of the trust and the projects we’ve been involved in, we could deliver high value for the province at a relatively low cost compared to other initiatives within the province — perpetually — for $100 million.

M. Dykeman: Wonderful.

G. Kyllo: I think that the other development trusts across the province might have a different idea about their levels of success. I know that you guys certainly adopted a different model and blew through all of the capital and are now looking for additional. Whereas many of the other trusts had a different model, where they only utilized proceeds from interest and just spent those funds in their committee. So it’s a very different model.

I certainly appreciate your presentation, but I do believe that the other trusts around the province would have a very different opinion about which model is the successful one.

A. Stone: I would just remark that if we had the same initial investment, we would already be perpetually sustainable with our existing model — off the interest, as you mentioned.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Mayor Stone. I stopped writing well into it because some of the places that you were talking about are places that I’ve visited. I just went: “Wow, I’ve been there. I love that. That’s a great project.” I left it with…. I understand the ask, and I understand how it’s going to move forward. Some of the places that you’ve created and partnered with are big, bold places to go and visit and enjoy the outdoors, in some cases.

I guess this is more of a comment than anything else. We started off the morning with Sonja Gaudet and what they were doing with parks and other things like this. I think this is a great way to finish off the day.

[7:00 p.m.]

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): Thanks very much, Mayor Stone.

With all this investment that you’ve put out — and they are all very different models…. And just to be correct, I think it was $100 million for NDIT, $50 million for CDIT and $50 million for ICE-T. That was the starting number?

A. Stone: There were some other funds. I have the actual numbers here as well.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): Another $50 million to NDIT, plus the top-up for….

A. Stone: Yeah. NDIT was $185 million. Now we’re $225 million, based on the yields that they’ve done with their investments.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): Well, it’s priorities and governments put money in for connecting communities.

My question is, with the investment of $60 million in the catchment area that you have, how do you determine success on that? Is it an economic return, or is it jobs? What’s ICE-T’s key performance indicator of these investments?

A. Stone: The success of each individual project, I think, stands on its own merits, so they’re all judged individually. But collectively, we look at jobs and economic activity that’s generated through the direct and attributable economic activity.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, with that, we’re going to wrap it up. We’re going to wrap up the day. On behalf of the committee, Mayor Stone, I’d like to thank you. This is a great end, as Mike says, to what have been a lot of presen­tations.

I want to assure you, before you burn the midnight oil to meet the deadline to get a written submission in, there is a transcript. We have access to a transcript. Your presen­tation has been recorded and will be made available to us. If there is additional information that you want to provide, by all means, but you don’t need to take what you’ve said to us today and write it out and send it in.

A. Stone: Thank you committee members and Madam Chair. I do want to say I recognize you’ve had a very long day. I appreciate the attentive inattention after a very long day. I understand you’ve travelled and been going through many presentations, so a lot of respect.

We do different kinds of work, maybe, on a daily basis. I know some of you have worked in local government. To be able to switch gears from housing to hospitals to economic development…. And they’re all connected, as you all know, so thank you so much. Have a wonderful evening.

J. Routledge (Chair): I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 7:02 p.m.